Global glitch affects mid-Michigan

LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — A botched computer update on Friday caused havoc on systems throughout mid-Michigan, nationwide, and even worldwide, affecting gas stations, hospitals, banks, and more.

It’s even affected the Capitol Region International Airport in Lansing, halting urgent travel plans.

“The airline just sent me a text on the next delay,” said Robin Weldon, whose flight out of the airport today was delayed. “They just pushed it back even further, so…”

Weldon and Janet Darling, a mother and daughter, have lived in Lansing their entire lives, but they were there a bit longer than anticipated. Their Delta Airlines flight has undergone hours of delays after a cyber outage paused or canceled flights around the world. Their travel plans are a bit more urgent than most—Weldon’s daughter is getting married.

“Thinking we are not going to get there in time because we are going to London,” said Weldon. “I have to walk down the aisle, and I have one of her wedding dresses.”

They are two of thousands of travelers grounded tonight as check-in and boarding services are down. The cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike says the outage was caused by a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows.

“It is really impacting many IT systems not only in the U.S. but across the world,” said Laura Wotruba, spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Technology, Management, and Budget. “From our perspective, this is not being treated as a cyber security issue—it was a system outage.”

It wasn’t just airports that went out of commission, but certain Speedway Gas Stations in Lansing bagged up their pumps. Both Sparrow and McLaren hospitals experienced delays, as did a few local businesses.

Officials with the DTMB are urging patience.

“We are doing due diligence behind the scenes to monitor the situation and get services back up and running,” said Wotruba.

As for the mother-daughter duo, even though it will take some time, they’re happy it’s only delays and not cancellations.

“I’m just so happy that the planes are going, you know, you have to look at the bright side,” said Darling.

“Just have to keep watching it and checking it,” said Weldon. “It’s going to be a couple of days before we get some sleep.”

State officials have confirmed that many of their systems are back online, but it could be a while before systems at the local level begin running properly.

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