CrowdStrike Disputes Claims of Negligence in Letter to Delta Attorney

Temperatures are rising in the blame game between software company CrowdStrike and Delta over responsibilities for the massive IT outage that impacted air traffic across the U.S. on July 19.

According to a letter posted on X/Twitter by aviation reporter David Slotnick on Sunday, CrowdStrike attorney Michael Carlinsky told Delta attorney David Boies that it was misleading to say CrowdStrike was responsible for Delta’s IT decisions in response to the outage. Boies was reportedly retained by Delta to seek damages from both CrowdStrike and Microsoft after the airline’s CEO Ed Bastian said the outages cost the company $500 million.

“CrowdStrike reiterates its apology to Delta, its employees, and its customers, and is empathetic to the circumstances they faced,” the letter from Carlinsky states. “However, CrowdStrike is highly disappointed by Delta’s suggestion that CrowdStrike acted inappropriately and strongly rejects any allegation that it was grossly negligent or committed willful misconduct with respect to the Channel File 291 incident. Your suggestion that CrowdStrike failed to do testing and validation is contradicted by the very information on which you rely from CrowdStrike’s Preliminary Post Incident Review.”

The letter states that CrowdStrike has worked tirelessly to help its customers restore impacted systems and resume services to their customers. Carlinsky states in the letter that within hours of the incident, CrowdStrike reached out to Delta to offer help and make sure the airline was aware of an available fix.

Additionally, Carlinsky says that CrowdStrike’s CEO personally reached out to Delta’s CEO to offer on-site assistance, but received no response. After following up on the offer for on-site support, Carlinsky said Delta declined the offer for help.

“Delta’s public threat of litigation distracts from this work and has contributed to a misleading narrative that CrowdStrike is responsible for Delta’s IT decisions and response to the outage,” the letter continues. “Should Delta pursue this path, Delta will have to explain to the public, its shareholders, and ultimately a jury why CrowdStrike took responsibility for its actions— swiftly, transparently, and constructively-while Delta did not.”

Carlinsky argues in the letter that Delta will have to explain why its competitors facing similar challenges all restored normal operations faster and why the airline turned down free on-site help from CrowdStrike. He also states that any liability by CrowdStrike is contractually capped in the single-digit millions.

Carlinsky stated that CrowdStrike demands Delta preserve all documents, records, and communications of any kind in the possession of the airline, including:

1. Delta’s response to the Channel File 291 incident.
2. Delta’s emergency backup, disaster recovery, and IT business continuity plans, and any related testing of those plans.
3. All assessments of Delta’s IT infrastructure, including any gaps and remediation recommendations, for the last five years, including in the wake of the Channel File 291 incident.
4. All decisions to upgrade or not upgrade Delta’s IT infrastructure in the last five years.
5. All scripts and software that Delta has deployed before and after the Channel File 291 incident to address possible Windows group policy corruption issues across the IT estate.
6. All system event logs for the weeks preceding and succeeding the Channel File 291 incident.
7. All encryption-level software that Delta deployed on all its IT infrastructure and the management of this software.
8. All technology and operating systems that Delta utilizes to assign workflow, routes, crews, flight schedules, etc. and any information, documents, or analysis on how that technology interacts with any software that Delta employs on its IT infrastructure.
9. Any data loss following the Channel File 291 incident related to Delta’s workflow routes, crew and flight schedules, and all communications with crew members following the Channel File 291 incident.
10. Delta’s response and recovery to any previous IT outages in the past five years.

“As I am sure you can appreciate, while litigation would be unfortunate, CrowdStrike will respond aggressively, if forced to do so, in order to protect its shareholders, employees, and other stakeholders,” the letter states.

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