Mass Tech Outage Causes Delays at Iowa Airports

One of the most frustrating moments as a working adult is finding out that your computer or device needs some sort of system update.

If you thought those weren't annoying enough, many Iowans woke up today to a pesky tech issue that put a wrench in their plans.

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What Exactly Happened?

According to reports, there was a "global technology outage" on Friday July 19th that disrupted operations for multiple industries.

Banks were knocked offline, some media organizations went off the air, forced hospitals to cancel elective surgeries, delayed public transit systems, and grounded flights.

The organization that was allegedly behind this outage is a U.S. cybersecurity firm called CrowdStrike. 

In a social media statement, the company's CEO George Kurtz confirmed that this outage was not a cyberattack or security incident.

It was actually a result of a recent content update. This update affected Microsoft's Windows Operating System, according to reports.

Did It Affect Any Iowa Airports?

This update did in fact cause flights in Iowa to be delayed.

Flights going in and out of the Des Moines Airport on Friday morning were delayed. Most of these flights were pushed back to 6:45 AM.

In addition, the Eastern Iowa Airport in Cedar Rapids reported that all of their early morning flights were boarding at just around the same time (approximately 5:00 AM).

The initial outages at this airport were during a time where there were no flights.

Then a few hours later, they reported that their United and Delta flights were experiencing some delays.

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