Sky News Falls Off Air, U.S. Flights Grounded Amid Global Tech Meltdown Linked To Microsoft

Sky News and other international broadcasters suffered outages on Friday morning amid a global tech meltdown linked to a security update to Microsoft systems.

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The Comcast-owned news channel was off air for around an hour, restoring a service just before 9am local time but with a stripped-back studio, a lack of chyrons, and presenters apparently reading from printed papers rather than an autocue.

Sky News anchor Anna Jones told viewers that the channel was “operating at minimal capacity” and it was “working to improve” its output.

Earlier, Sky News viewers were greeted by the message: “We apologize for the interruption to this broadcast. We hope to restore the transmission of Sky News shortly.”

The BBC’s CBBC kids channel also blacked out, replaced with bird song and the message: “Sorry! Something’s gone wrong.”

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In Australia, Sky News Australia (which is unconnected to the UK station), ABC, SBS, Channel 7, and Channel 9 reported issues. Foxtel channels were replaced by the message: “We apologise for this break in transmission and will return to normal programming as soon as possible.”

Airlines, banks, and train operators have also been impacted. United, Delta, and American Airlines issued a “global ground stop” on all flights. UK, German, Swiss and other airlines have reported problems and significant delays at airports.

CrowdStrike, a major cybersecurity company, has admitted responsibility for the issues. CEO George Kurtz said: “CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”

Earlier on Friday, a Sky News Australia reporter talked viewers through the issues, walking around a studio with dead screens.

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