A temporary system outage at a Minnesota air traffic control facility on August 18 grounded flights and disrupted air traffic across a 330,000-square-mile area managed by the Federal Aviation Administration.
The outage affected flights into and out of Minnesota and nine other Midwest states, including Michigan, Kansas, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Wisconsin. Flights were either held on the ground or rerouted due to the disruption at the Minneapolis air traffic control facility.
At Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport, delays averaged 90 minutes on the evening of August 18 as aircraft faced extended wait times amid the disruptions.
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FAA confirmed the cause was a system failure impacting radar and air traffic control systems. Although these systems later came back online, flight disruptions continued at multiple airports in the affected states.
Airports across the Midwest expected ongoing delays throughout the evening of August 18 as operations gradually normalized following the outage.
