The Federal Aviation Administration reported a temporary outage at the Minneapolis air traffic control facility on August 18, 2026, which affected radar and air traffic control systems. This facility manages air traffic over 330,000 square miles in the Midwest region.
Midwest States Affected by Flight Disruptions
Flights entering and departing Minnesota, along with nine other states including Michigan, Kansas, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Wisconsin, were subject to diversions or ground holds. The outage caused interruptions across a broad area encompassing significant portions of the Midwest.
Delays averaged 90 minutes at Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport on the evening of August 18, 2026. The airport
itself was not the source of the outage but experienced cascading effects from the disruption at the Minneapolis air traffic control center. Additional delays were expected to continue throughout the evening at other regional airports within the affected states.
System Outage Details and Flight Impact
The FAA attributed the grounding and delays to simultaneous failures in radar and air traffic control communication systems at the Minneapolis facility. Although these systems eventually returned to operation, delays and flight management challenges persisted, affecting both commercial and regional carriers in the area.
Flights across Minnesota and neighboring Midwest states remained either held on the ground or diverted during the
outage, resulting in widespread operational disruptions on August 18. Despite restoration of technical systems, the backlog in air traffic control continued to impact flight schedules into the evening hours.
