In a major disruption that wreaked havoc on Friday, a massive IT outage took hold, causing widespread delays and cancellations of over 5,000 flights in the United States. The technical glitch also impacted banks and other major institutions, with residual effects expected to continue throughout the day.

By Friday afternoon, it seemed that computer systems were mostly restored, but some companies and agencies cautioned that lingering effects could persist. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported that several airlines had requested ground stops for their fleets during the outage.

Leading airlines have responded to the inconvenience by offering travel vouchers this weekend, enabling passengers to adjust their itineraries without any additional change fees. FlightAware, a flight-tracking service, reported that as of late Friday morning, more than 1,900 U.S. flights had been canceled, along with over 3,000 flights experiencing delays. While most major airlines have resumed service, they have advised passengers to remain alert for possible disruptions throughout the day.

Notably, the outage also affected emergency services across the country, with numerous police departments reporting issues with their 911 systems. In response, authorities urged the public to utilize non-emergency lines if they were unable to reach 911 directly.

The root cause of the IT outage has been linked to cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. However, the company's CEO, George Kurtz, stated that the incident was not a security breach or cyberattack, but rather an issue stemming from a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. CrowdStrike promptly identified and isolated the issue, and a fix has been deployed to rectify the situation.

Microsoft 365 announced that services have returned to normalcy as of midday Friday. Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, acknowledged the situation and assured customers that they are working closely with CrowdStrike and industry partners to offer technical guidance and support for a safe restoration of systems.

In response to the widespread disruption, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a statement early Friday, confirming their collaboration with CrowdStrike, Microsoft, and other federal, state, local, and critical infrastructure partners to fully assess and address the system outages.

The global IT outage caused a cascade of problems across the globe, resulting in grounded flights, delays in airports worldwide, and disruptions to various services. Authorities and companies involved are working diligently to provide solutions and restore stability to affected systems.