Global tech outage ripples into Alaska’s 911, airport, hospital and court systems

A massive international technology outage knocked Alaska’s emergency calling system offline for hours and disrupted air travel and other services, including state courts and some hospital functions.

By afternoon, most of the significant issues had been resolved as systems got back online, though state officials warned travelers that flight disruptions could continue into the weekend.

Alaska was one of several states that experienced problems with 911 emergency call centers, prompting public service agencies to distribute alternate numbers.

Alaska State Troopers said the 911 system was down, at least intermittently in places, for about seven hours from Thursday evening into early Friday morning. Before service was restored, Wasilla police urged people not to keep trying 911, saying the number of callers testing the number was overwhelming dispatchers.

The 911 outage began in the three trooper dispatch centers in Fairbanks, Wasilla and Soldotna around 9 p.m. and was fully resolved around 4 a.m., according to troopers spokesman Austin McDaniel.

Airports in Anchorage and Fairbanks experienced multiple flight delays with several cancellations across multiple airlines at Ted Stevens Anchorage International, according to state transportation officials. Delays and cancellations extended into Saturday as airlines resumed operations.

Alaska Airlines wasn’t significantly affected by the outage, according to Ted Stevens International Airport spokesman Erik Peterson. Other airlines reported the following delays or cancellations out of Anchorage, he said Friday morning: Delta Air Lines had four flight cancellations; United Airlines had three cancellations; and American Airlines had one delay.

The airport was open with the “vast majority” of flights uninterrupted, Peterson said, encouraging anyone with questions about their own plans to contact their airlines directly.

Chrissy Vensel was one of the travelers whose plans were upended this weekend. She and her husband, Leo, were scheduled to fly from Anchorage to Detroit late Friday night in the first leg of their journey home to Greensburg, Pennsylvania, but their 11:59 p.m. flight was canceled, leaving them and several other Delta travelers scrambling to make alternate travel arrangements. That proved to be a challenge: She said they were on hold with customer service for hours, the airline’s app wasn’t working and the Delta desk at the airport was understaffed.

“People are getting very angry” at the airport, she said in an email early Saturday.

She said she waited in line until 4:30 a.m. — only to be told they’d have to wait until Sunday to fly out. “Our flight home tomorrow has already been delayed,” she said Saturday.

Vensel said she and others would’ve stayed where they were earlier Friday — in her case, Seward — if they’d known their flight out of Anchorage was going to be canceled, so they could hike or fish rather than wait in line at the airport. She said stranded travelers were sleeping at the airport, and she and her husband had to find a hotel with no guarantee of being reimbursed by the airline.

Fairbanks International Airport also warned travelers of potential disruptions due to the outage. The airport reported three delayed flights Friday.

Each of the state’s three largest hospitals in Anchorage reported some issues Friday.

Providence Alaska Medical Center spokesman Mikal Canfield said all care centers in Alaska were impacted to varying extents starting late Thursday night.

“Other than isolated, minor exceptions, this has not impacted patient care,” Canfield said by email.

“All our facilities remain open for urgent and emergent patient care and at this time, no elective procedures have been postponed or canceled,” he said, adding that all respiratory therapy appointments Friday have been cancelled and will need to be rescheduled.

Systems were gradually coming back online and returning to normal by afternoon, Canfield said. Work was expected to continue through the weekend to manage any new or unresolved impacts.

A spokesman for Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, which operates Anchorage’s Alaska Native Medical Center, said emergency services and specialty clinics remained open Friday as officials “organized an incident command to urgently restore all systems at the Alaska Native Medical Center and campus-wide.”

Spokesman Shea Siegert said in an email the consortium was “prioritizing solutions in clinical areas, using downtime procedures as needed, and continue to provide the highest level of patient care possible.”

Alaska Regional Hospital spokeswoman Kjerstin Lastufka said in an email that Regional has not been directly impacted by the technology issue and “we are working with our vendors to understand any issues they may be facing. We do not expect the incident to impact our ability to provide care to our patients.”

Alaska state courts officials warned Friday of slow online access and the potential for delayed hearings but announced that everything was back to “full functionality and business as usual” within 12 hours.