EMOTIONAL JOURNEY
I couldn’t spread my mom’s ashes because of CrowdStrike outage – I had to take drastic measures after they lost her urn
Delta tragically lost one woman's luggage containing her mother's ashes
HAVOC ensued after cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike distributed a faulty update to its security software last week, impacting millions of businesses and individuals across the globe.
Despite CrowdStrike deploying a fix within hours, outages in several key industries continued for days, and with airlines canceling or delaying flights left and right, one woman went to extremes to honor her late mother's dying wish.
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Heather Francisco is from Enumclaw, a small town in King County, Washington.
After her mother passed away earlier this year, Francisco had planned on honoring her wishes by scattering her ashes in her mom's home state, Mississippi.
First, Francisco flew from Washington to Florida, where she planned on boarding a connecting flight to Mississippi.
Francisco then intended to fly home back to Washington on Sunday afternoon.
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When she landed, however, Delta told her they had lost her luggage, the same luggage containing her mother's ashes.
Thankfully, the airline was able to recover her missing bag, which was labeled as "fragile," the same day.
Because it was in a different state, Francisco had to wait until the following day to reunite with her luggage – and her mother's ashes.
When she received her luggage on Friday, July 19, Francisco thought her travel headache was over.
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Then, out of nowhere, the CrowdStrike outage wreaked havoc across the globe, shutting down or delaying air travel for hours – and causing delays that lasted for days.
LAST RESORT
Despite issuing a fix later that day, the delays continued, with many airlines continuing to cancel and reschedule flights.
Computer chaos may take 'weeks' to repair after bad update shuts down shops, airlines and TV channels
One airline, Delta Air Lines, immediately paused all flights when the software outage struck, and by Saturday evening, over 3,500 flights had been canceled.
Delta's CEO Ed Bastian released a public statement apologizing for the incident, and said the company considers canceling flights "a last resort."
He also told frustrated fliers that the outage occurred "on the busiest travel weekend of the summer," which limited the airline's ability to accommodate passengers on available flights.
"I want to apologize to every one of you who have been impacted by these events," Bastian wrote.
"Delta is in the business of connecting the world, and we understand how difficult it can be when your travels are disrupted," he added.
By Tuesday, Delta had canceled more than 4,500 flights since July 19, which amounted to more than double its total 2024 cancelations before the CrowdStrike outage.
Like many travelers, Francisco's return flight was delayed again and again.
However, after days of delays, Delta could not get Francisco on any flights – to Mississippi or Washington.
What is CrowdStrike?
THE global cyber outage affecting TV channels, banks, hospitals, airports and emergency services appears to relate to an issue at cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
IT security firm CrowdStrike ran a recorded phone message on Friday - saying it was aware of reports of crashes on Microsoft's Windows operating system relating to its Falcon sensor.
A prerecorded message said: "Thanks for contacting CrowdStrike support. CrowdStrike is aware of reports of crashes on Windows... related to the Falcon sensor."
The Falcon system monitors the computers it is installed on and detects hacks and bugs before responding to them.
CrowdStrike, headquartered in Austin, Texas, says it is a global security leader that provides an advanced platform to protect data.
A CrowdStrike update on Friday is said to have caused a critical error in Microsoft operating systems, affecting millions worldwide.
The company regularly updates systems with new anti-virus software
Toby Murray, associate professor in the School of Computing and Information Systems at The University of Melbourne, Australia said: "If Falcon is suffering a malfunction then it could be causing a widespread outage for two reasons.
"One: Falcon is widely deployed on many computers, and two: because of Falcon's privileged nature.
"Falcon is a bit like anti-virus software: it is regularly updated with information about the latest online threats.
"It is possible that today's outage may have been caused by a buggy update to Falcon."
Cyber expert Troy Hunt told Australian TV network Seven: “It looks like they've pushed a bad update, which is presently nuking every machine that takes it.”
ROAD TRIP
Francisco took matters into her own hands and decided to drive cross-country back home.
"I'm just going to drive home," Francisco said, as reported by NBC affiliate KING-TV.
"The last thing I want - I already saw a massive amount of luggage piling up - I can't do that," she continued.
"I've got my mom in here. I can't have her lost in Argentina or God knows where else."
Before she could kick off her four-day trip, Francisco was hit with yet another delay.
Flights from Florida to Alabama were also canceled, requiring her to seek help from a family member to drive her from one state to the next to reserve a rental car for the trip.
“The funny thing is my mom always said she didn’t wanna fly," Francisco said.
"She never wanted to fly again. But that she wanted to take a road trip back to Mississippi with me. I guess she’ll get her wish after all.”
Unfortunately, Francisco won't be able to stop in Mississippi to scatter her mother's ashes.
"Now it's (going to be) a solid four days of driving," Francisco said, adding, "And it's expensive."
She's unsure whether she has enough paid time off from work to cover the days she's missed as a result of the delays.
Francisco, who was diagnosed with cancer a few weeks earlier, also told reporters she had missed what was to be her first oncology appointment back in Washington because of the flight cancelations.
"It's putting stress on me, my family, and my coworkers," Francisco said.
"It's tough," she added.
Delta eventually refunded her for the cost of her return flight, which was never rescheduled.
Most of the costs, of course, went towards the rental car and gas for the cross-country trip.
As of Thursday, Francisco was driving through Texas, with her mother's ashes by her side.
She says she intends to take another trip to Mississippi in the future to fulfill her mother's wishes and scatter her ashes.
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For now, she says she's looking on the bright side.
"I get one more road trip with my mom," she said, focusing on the silver lining.
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