911 services across Alaska are back up and running after a software update from the popular cloud security provider CrowdStrike caused chaos and crashed computer systems around the world late Thursday night.

Alaska State Troopers reported late Thursday night that the outage had disrupted operations at “many” emergency and non-emergency call centers around the state. State troopers said 911 services across the state were back to normal as of about 6:45 a.m.

Across the country, the faulty software update disrupted health care providers, airlines and banks, among others.

The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities said the issue resulted in cancellations of seven Delta and United flights at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. State officials said Alaska Airlines flights were not disrupted by the outage.

Flight tracking website FlightAware reported 42 delays at Ted Stevens as of 1:30 p.m. Friday.

“Multiple airlines systems continue to be affected late into the morning, there is no projected timeline for when they will be operational again,” DOT&PF said in a statement.

State officials said the issue had delayed three flights at Fairbanks International Airport.

The operator of Alaska’s largest hospital, Providence Health and Services, said in a statement posted to its website that its IT teams worked overnight to respond to the issue and restore functionality to a key electronic health records system. But the nonprofit Catholic hospital provider said other systems, including clinical applications and workstations, continued to feel the impact of the outage as of noon Alaska time Friday.

A spokesperson said Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage was experiencing “operational challenges” as a result of the software glitch but said care was continuing.

“While we have organized an incident command to urgently restore all systems at the Alaska Native Medical Center and campus-wide, our emergency services and specialty clinics remain open,” Shea Siegert of the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium said in an emailed statement. “Patients needing healthcare can absolutely come to the hospital or clinic for care. We are prioritizing solutions in clinical areas, using downtime procedures as needed, and continue to provide the highest level of patient care possible.”

Erin Hardin, a spokesperson for Bartlett Regional Hospital in Juneau, said the outage’s impact on their operations was limited, and that patients should not expect disruptions.

“Our daily operations are functioning normally,” she said. “We are learning of a few, I think, third party vendors that we do use that have been impacted, and so we’re learning about what some of those secondary impacts are. … That work is still underway, but our major operations are not affected.”

The outage also affected state courts, said Alaska Court System spokesperson Rebecca Koford, though the impacts were relatively minor.

“In some locations, things might have been a little slow to get started this morning, but no hearings were actually disrupted,” she said. “Everything was able to continue, but it might have required a little bit of extra patience today.”

State appeals court records were inaccessible online Friday morning but appeared to be functioning normally by midday. Koford said IT teams worked overnight to prevent wider impacts to court operations.

First National Bank Alaska said by email that its customers were not affected by the issue.

“Our internal Information Technology and Security teams, who monitor First National’s network 24/7, took immediate action to ensure all bank systems remained secure and operational, ensuring all customers experienced uninterrupted access to in-person and digital banking services,” said Senior Vice President Denise Brown Robinson.

CrowdStrike offered a workaround for the issue in a blog post on its website.

This is a developing story and may be updated.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – A national technology-related outage is causing issues for many 911 and non-emergency call centers across America.

Alaska State Troopers say emergency call systems statewide are also experiencing extensive problems and not working correctly.

If you have an emergency in the Anchorage, the Anchorage Police Department says you can still call 911, as its system is still working as of publishing time.

If 911 is not working in your area, AST says you can use the following numbers instead:

• Interior Alaska: (907) 474-2568
• Southeast Alaska: (907) 474-2568
• Western Alaska: (907) 474-2568
• Mat-Su and Valley area: (907) 376-5486
• Kenai Peninsula: (907) 262-4453

Copyright 2024 KTUU. All rights reserved.

In closely watched oral arguments on Thursday, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals indicated that it is unlikely to grant an environmental group’s petition for an order that could halt — at least temporarily — a valuable Southeast Alaska king salmon fishery.

In May 2023, a judge in the U.S. District Court covering western Washington issued an order stating that federal officials were allowing Alaska fishermen to harvest king salmon at rates that harmed an endangered population of killer whales in Puget Sound.

That order could have halted Southeast Alaska’s troll king salmon fishery, critical for residents in the region, but the 9th Circuit stayed the lower court’s ruling, putting it on hold.

The Washington-based Wild Fish Conservancy, which brought the initial lawsuit, is seeking to lift the hold and thus stop the fishery. 

The state of Alaska, the Alaska Trollers Association and a coalition of environmental, tribal and other groups are all seeking to keep the hold in place, as is the National Marine Fisheries Service, the lead defendant.

As legal matters proceed, the federal government is rewriting the fisheries rules that were the subject of the lawsuit, and a new version of the rules is expected by November.

Attorney Thekla Hansen-Young, representing the National Marine Fisheries in court on Thursday, said that “it is undisputed that whales are not going to go extinct in the next four months. … On the other side, if the stay were to be lifted, that would irreparably harm Southeast Alaska communities because there would be considerable uncertainty about how they could continue to fish.”

Judges Milan Smith, Mark Bennett and Anthony Johnson appeared sympathetic to that line of thought and skeptical of the idea that they should lift the hold before the new rules are released.

Speaking to attorney Brian Knutsen of the Wild Fish Conservancy, Bennett said documents submitted to the court indicate “a lot of uncertainty” about whether whales will be helped by a halt to fishing.

Meanwhile, “closing some of the fisheries is absolutely going to cause harm to inhabitants of Alaska and their various subsistence and cultural practices,” he said.

“I find it very difficult to come out on your side, given the uncertainty about the numbers, but convince me why I should be less troubled,” Bennett told Knutsen.

Knutsen responded that there’s also “a significant amount of speculation with respect to the economic impacts,” suggesting that Alaskans might switch to fishing different kinds of fish if barred from catching kings.

Knutsen said the Conservancy doesn’t believe — based on prior experience with other federal issues — that NMFS will complete the new rules by November.

“We think, if there may be delays, that the benefit of the doubt should be given to the (whale) species and not to the hopes … the gambling that NOAA will get legal and new documents out,” he said.

In response to those concerns, the judges asked Hansen-Young if she could assure them that the November timeline will hold.

She said that it could commit, “barring unforeseen circumstances.”

After that comment, one of the judges asked whether Hansen-Young would approve of an order that halts fishing if the federal government fails to meet that November timeline.

She initially said she “wouldn’t agree to such a broad grant of relief to plaintiffs,” but when asked whether she would approve of the 9th Circuit issuing more limited instructions in case of a missed deadline, she said that the government “would not object, so long as any instruction to the district court would be post-December 1.”