A major computer failure has disrupted various sectors across the Netherlands, including Eindhoven Airport, emergency services, and several public bodies.
Grounded planes at Eindhoven Airport, impacting international routes, revealed the severity of the situation.
"Due to a network disturbance, air traffic is not possible at Eindhoven Airport. It is not yet known when the situation will be resolved," the airport’s website stated.
There could be no air traffic until 17:00 at the country's second-largest airport, reports Flemish public media VRT.
Nevertheless, normal operations continued at the country’s largest airport, Schiphol, located near Amsterdam. Some flights are being diverted to Brussels, Germany and Amsterdam.
Plane operator TUI announced it was relocating its scheduled flights from Eindhoven Airport to Zaventem due to a computer glitch. A flight from Morocco, scheduled to land in Eindhoven, was instead redirected to Brussels Airport on Wednesday.
Another flight due to head to Tenerife, Spain, departed from Zaventem instead of Eindhoven. Budget operator Ryanair, meanwhile, announced it was diverting flights to Weeze in Germany.
Government affected
The Defence and Justice and Security Ministries have also been affected, with staff encountering connectivity issues impacting some services. A Defence Ministry spokesperson stated they were "attempting to map out the situation and its overall impact." The prosecution service reported external communication problems.
Local councils struggled to issue official documents like driving licenses and process appointment requests. The online authentication system DigiD was also affected, halting identity confirmation SMS and new account creation.
Coastguards announced they were "unreachable" due to the outage, neither by phone nor radio, advising people with emergencies to dial 112. Police authorities disclosed that the Netherlands military police contact centre was inaccessible as well.
Appointments for Covid-19 vaccination could not be made either. Additionally, access to the central register of gambling exclusions was impossible, whilst the Dutch Road Safety Agency (RDW) reported disruptions to some registration and inspection services.
This incident follows a significant computer failure last month, which plunged airlines, banks, and global media into chaos due to an antivirus program’s update.
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is investigating the incident. An NCSC spokesperson reassured that there are no indications of public safety being compromised and it’s still unclear whether the outage was the result of a cyber-attack.
