FLIGHTMARE American Airlines, Delta, and United planes told to stay in the air as global Microsoft outage grounds flights

AMERICAN Airlines, Delta, and United flights were forced to stay in the air as a global Microsoft outage had sparked travel chaos for flyers.

The tech crash grounded hundreds of flights due to take off on Friday morning, prompting some travelers to sleep on airport jetways.

Passengers across the country have faced unprecedented travel chaos due to global tech issues (pictured: flyers at LAX Airport)
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Passengers across the country have faced unprecedented travel chaos due to global tech issues (pictured: flyers at LAX Airport)Credit: AP:Associated Press
American Airlines has grounded all of its flights (stock image)
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American Airlines has grounded all of its flights (stock image)
Communication issues have hit major airlines, including Delta (stock image)
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Communication issues have hit major airlines, including Delta (stock image)Credit: AFP - Getty
United flights have also been suspended as airborne flights have been told to stay in the air (stock image)
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United flights have also been suspended as airborne flights have been told to stay in the air (stock image)Credit: Getty Images - Getty
A passenger at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Intentional Airport shared an image of the disruption flyers faced inside the terminals
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A passenger at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Intentional Airport shared an image of the disruption flyers faced inside the terminalsCredit: X/Mario_Demiuex
Flyers have faced major issues as it is unclear when the tech problem will be fixed (pictured: passenger at LAX Airport)
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Flyers have faced major issues as it is unclear when the tech problem will be fixed (pictured: passenger at LAX Airport)Credit: AP

The Federal Aviation Administration has since canceled the ground stop at U.S. airports and advised airlines to resume flights.

Those three major U.S. carriers had requested a global ground stop on all flights in the early hours of the morning, according to ABC News.

They called on the FAA to make this substantial move following widespread national and international problems.

Over 500 U.S. flights faced delays and over 320 U.S. flights were canceled as of 4 am EST, according to FlightAware.

Microsoft provided an update on the major situation in an X post this morning.

“Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions,” Microsoft said in the psot.

“We still expect that users will continue to see gradual relief as we continue to mitigate the issue.”

Tech company CrowdStrike blamed “content deployment” for the extreme outages today, according to The Guardian.CrowdStrike has reportedly deployed a fix following this global outage, according to ABC News Australia.

The cybersecurity firm said the new content update would resolve the previously incorrect update and subsequent issues"As your devices receive this update you may need to reboot for the changes to take effect and for the blue screen (BSOD) issues to be resolved," the firm said.

American Airlines provided an update and said it was working with the tech company to fix the problem and apologized to flyers.

"We’re aware of a technical issue with CrowdStrike that is impacting multiple carriers," American Airlines said in a X post.

"American is working with CrowdStrike to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and apologize to our customers for the inconvenience."

What is CrowdStrike?

THE global cyber outage affecting TV channels, banks, hospitals, airports and emergency services appears to relate to an issue at cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.

IT security firm CrowdStrike ran a recorded phone message on Friday - saying it was aware of reports of crashes on Microsoft's Windows operating system relating to its Falcon sensor.

A prerecorded message said: "Thanks for contacting CrowdStrike support. CrowdStrike is aware of reports of crashes on Windows... related to the Falcon sensor."

CrowdStrike, headquartered in Austin, Texas, says it is a global security leader which provides an advanced platform to protect data.

A CrowdStrike update on Friday is said to have caused a critical error in Microsoft operating systems, affecting millions worldwide.

The company regularly updates systems with new anti-virus software.

Cyber expert Troy Hunt told Australian TV network Seven: “It looks like they've pushed a bad update, which is presently nuking every machine that takes it.”

A United spokesperson had also blamed an unnamed "third party software" and said the "outage is impacting computer systems worldwide," according to Axios.

Delta cited a "vendor technology issue" for the chaos and told impacted flyers to check their Fly Delta app and text message for notifications, according to an X post.

The FAA had told airborne flights to stay in the air, while it has kept others on the tarmac at the height of the mayhem.

This major issue had not just affected large airlines as smaller carriers were also hit.

Allegiant Air and Frontier Airlines also grounded its flights this morning, but Frontier has since lifted its ground stop.

Passengers complained about major delays after the Friday incident.

Social media sites have been flooded with stories and communication from passengers across the carrier's network.

Some flyers said they were told by pilots and crew that their aircraft's must be grounded until systems were brought back online.

Passengers also complained about hours long delays across airports.

One flyer said they had to wait on the runway for an hour due to the tech issue.

"@AmericanAir gotta love when you just want to get home and you have been sitting on the runway for an hour only to be told all the American Airlines systems are down," one person wrote on X.

"Not sure it is possible to fly the airline without some sort of disruption."

San Francisco's international airport was majorly hit across the board as all its flights were suspended, according to CBS affiliate KPIX.

One traveler shared an image, on X, of how their passengers inside terminals had also been affected.

They showed how the flight destination screens at their airport were not working and showed a "Recovery" message on a blue Microsoft screen.

"SFO computer system outage is grounding lots of United flights right now," the person said.

This blue Microsoft screen has appeared on devices across different company's and industries that have also been hit with this outage, The U.S. Sun has reported.

WIDESPREAD DISARRAY

911 calls have also reportedly gone down across several states.

Emergency services in Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Ohio have been hit by this global IT outage.

Hospitals have also been affected by these widespread tech problems.

Major channels operated by Paramount Global, like MTV, VH1, CMT, and Pop TV, have also been bumped offline due to the global CrowdStrike outage.

Even banks and international TV stations have been knocked off their air and internet due to this unprecedented incident, The U.S. Sun has reported.

It is currently unclear how widespread the issue is but flights and airports in Australia have also been greatly affected, according to BBC News.

New York City's MTA system has also been affected as some customer information systems were offline.

PASSENGER PANDEMONIUM

These company's was not been the only flight carrier to face major travel disruption this week.

Frontier, Allegiant Air, and SunCountry, all suffered from a significant Microsoft outage.

These airlines had grounded all of their flights for several hours on Wednesday, as the stop was lifted later that night.

“Our systems are currently impacted by a Microsoft outage, which is also affecting other companies,” Frontier said in a statement on its website.

“We appreciate your patience.”

GROUNDED

This comes a year after the FAA forced all domestic flights to stay on the tarmac, which caused more than 4,000 delays, The U.S. previously reported.

This system failure had caused the biggest travel disruption in the U.S. since 9/11.

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