Flights across the U.S. Midwest were grounded on August 18, 2026, following a system outage at a Federal Aviation Administration air traffic control facility in Minnesota. The outage halted radar and air traffic control systems essential for managing air traffic over a large section of the region.
The Minnesota FAA facility manages flights over an area spanning 330,000 square miles that includes Minnesota and nine other Midwestern states: Michigan, Kansas, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Wisconsin. While the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport was not the site of the outage, it experienced average flight delays of 90 minutes Thursday
evening as a result.
The disruption affected radar and air traffic control systems, causing flights to be held on the ground or diverted. Systems were restored later the same day, allowing flight operations to resume, though delays persisted across multiple airports in the region throughout the evening.
Travelers flying into or out of Minnesota and the affected Midwestern states faced delays and diversions. Flight delays at Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport averaged 90 minutes Thursday evening. Other airports across the Midwest were expected to experience similar ongoing delays during the night of August 18.
The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed the temporary
outage at its Minneapolis air traffic control facility and the resulting disruption. The Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport was affected by delays, but not the location where the system outage occurred.
