Major computer outage: Eindhoven Airport ground stop extended to at least 5 p.m.

A disruption in the computer systems utilized at Eindhoven Airport has forced officials to extend a ground stop there until at least 5 p.m. The disruption was caused by a technical issue in the Ministry of Defense’s IT system. Eindhoven Airport is the civilian part of the Eindhoven military airbase and, therefore, falls under Defense’s management.

“In any case, air traffic is not possible at Eindhoven Airport until 5 p.m.,” officials said on social media. The airport referred stranded passengers to their airlines and to the airport’s website for up-to-date flight information.

Of the flights scheduled to depart on Wednesday, 13 were now canceled outright, the airport said at about noon. Four other departures were moved to other airports, including Schiphol, Brussels, and Weeze. Another seven arrivals were canceled, seven were diverted to Weeze Airport, and one was diverted to Schiphol Airport.

The cause of the malfunction at Defense is still unknown, and it is unclear how long the issue will last. It is also impacting various government services, including the emergency services’ communications systems P2000 and C2000. The police, fire brigades, and ambulance services, among others, are currently communicating via phone call and SMS, a spokesperson for Veligheidsregio Utrecht told NOS. The emergency number 1-1-2 is still accessible.

DigiD is also experiencing a malfunction, but it is not yet clear whether it has the same cause. People can access the service, but can’t receive an SMS code to log in with.

Justice and Security Minister David van Weel seemed resigned to the likelihood of more major IT outages in the future, saying it is “a sign of our digitalized society,” according to newswire ANP.

The key to coping with such issues as they arise is having backup systems and redundancies, he continued. He said that is why emergency services operators and officers can still be reached at 112 and why rescue workers can still be dispatched even if the C2000 communication system goes offline.

He emphasized the importance that people immediately update operating systems on their phones and computers as they become available, as these are instrumental in patching up vulnerabilities. “We click on things that shouldn’t be, we don’t change our passwords, we don’t do our updates,” he said when speaking more broadly about the users’ role in cybersecurity.