Travelers suffer as CrowdStrike error strands passengers at Charlotte airport

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) – A computer error causing massive problems worldwide. The security program CrowdStrike many companies use to block hackers was sent with what we’re told is a coding error on its last update causing systems to crash and affecting just about everyone. This in part caused a travel nightmare stranding traveling passengers at most airports.

“Our first flight got cancelled out of Memphis, Tennessee,” said Lynn Barnett.

Lynn Barnett is flying through Charlotte when she was stopped cold by the computing problem. She’s been here nearly 40 hours so far and overnighted it in the airport once already.

“They keep pushing our plane back and back and back and keep cancelling.” Barnett told WBTV’s Ron Lee.

And to get back home, she has to take drastic measures.

“My husband is actually driving from Tupelo, Mississippi, to Charlotte to come pick us up.” Barnett explained.

But before explaining how this problem happened, you have to understand what the problem actually is.

“A bad coding error,” said Chris Smith.

Chris Smith works IT for Gray Communications. He says Crowdstrike is an essential tool used in cybersecurity to keep bad actors at bay and out of critical systems. But something, somewhere went haywire. And the symptoms are easy to spot.

“Constand reboots. Failing on a blue screen.” Smith told us.

Better known to many in the profession as the blue screen of death. Smith says the problem wasn’t any type of cyber-attack, rather a simple coding error pushed out in a company update. One with consequences many experts have never seen before.

“I’ve never seen in in my more than 20 years in it and computing, I’ve never seen an outage of this size anywhere in the world.” said Dr. Cori Faklaris, assistant professor in the College of Computing at UNCC.

“We’re all one bad line of code away from something like today.” James Lee with the Identity Theft Resource Center commented.

And the affects were easy to see in the form of flight cancellations and frayed nerves.

“Our plane has been delayed since nine o’clock this morning and were still not home yet.” Melya Jackson explained.

“The universe had something else in mind today.” she said.

Vina Rhodes is trying to get back home to Ashville, easier said than done. She’s also wonders is being so reliant of technology could eventually cause problems like this.

“It’s just mind blowing just how reliant we are on this technology.” Rhodes told WBTV.

But eventually, Rhodes will find her way home.

“It’s been a day.” she said.

As the problem eventually gets fixed, things will get back to normal. But we’re not there yet.

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