ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — A tech outage felt around the world has grounded flights and knocked some banks and other businesses offline. In Western North Carolina, the outage impacted some flights at Asheville Regional Airport.

The Associated Press reports cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike — which has Microsoft among its clients — said that the issue believed to be behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack. CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said the company was working to fix problems created for Windows users of its tools by a recent update in a post on the social media platform X.

Asheville Regional Airport impact

Asheville Regional Airport tweeted at 5:16 a.m. Friday that the nationwide “Microsoft outage” was affecting airlines at the airport. At 8:41 a.m., the airport tweeted the outage was continuing to affect flights. The airport urged travelers to check the status of their flight directly with the airline prior to arriving at the airport.

As of 9:15 a.m., a majority of arriving flights were listed “on time” and most departures were listed “on time” with a few delays listed.

Allegient Air posted to X Friday afternoon that all flights scheduled to depart before 2 p.m. Eastern Time/11 a.m. Pacific Time were canceled.

WNC hospitals

A spokesperson for Mission Health told 828newsNOW it has not been directly impacted by the outage, but some technology vendors have been impacted, causing a “limited number” of rescheduled appointments. “Mission Health has not been directly impacted by CrowdStrike’s technology issue,” Mission’s statement read. “All Mission Health hospitals and clinics remain open and MAMA air and ground services are fully operational. However, some of our technology vendors have been impacted requiring a few procedures to be rescheduled. The limited number of patients impacted by this will be contacted directly.

A spokesperson for AdventHealth Hendersonville told 828newsNOW some computers within their system have been impacted. “The global CrowdStrike issue affecting devices running Microsoft impacted some AdventHealth computers,” the spokesperson’s email stated. “A fix has been deployed and systems are recovering. We have protocols in place so when IT issues occur we are still able to provide care for our communities.”

County systems, 911 centers

In a Facebook post at 7:19 a.m., Yancey County Emergency Management said the outage has “affected Yancey County local government and any system utilizing the Crowdstrike platform.” The department said the county’s IT team was able to bring 911 and emergency services back online early Friday morning, but other county services are still down.

A spokesperson for Buncombe County government shared the following information at 10:37 a.m.:

In Buncombe County, the CrowdStrike-related global IT outage has not impacted core services, and 911, Emergency Services, Libraries, and Election Services are running without interruptions.

Some services relying on third-party vendors have been impacted. Those include:

• Mountain Mobility – Fixed Trailblazer routes are running without impacts; however, if you’ve scheduled an on-demand or paratransit trip, please call 828-250-6750 to confirm that trip.
• Permits – Lobby kiosks are non-functional at this time
• Air Quality Index Reporting
• Sporadic devices – Some laptops and kiosks are requiring IT staff to conduct a manual update to restore operating systems

County offices will operate on a regular schedule today, July 19.

A spokesperson for the city of Asheville told 828newsNOW their IT team was looking into the matter and, “While systems and applications owned and managed by the City are not affected, some third party products and services may be affected.”

A spokesperson for the city of Hendersonville told 828newsNOW she was not aware of any impacts to city departments.

At 7:23 a.m., McDowell County Emergency Management said in a Facebook post the county’s 911 center was fully operational and not affected by the global outage.

North Carolina DMV

The North Carolina DMV posted on X at 8:38 a.m. drivers license offices and license plate agencies were impacted by the global event and that they were “unable to assist customers this morning.” By 2 p.m., the DMV reported all services had resumed. The DMV previously said it was trying to reach out to customers to reschedule appointments.

This is a developing story. Check back at 828newsNOW.com for updates.