A temporary outage of radar and air traffic control systems at the Minneapolis air traffic control facility on August 20, 2026, disrupted flight operations across the Midwest, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Widespread Impact Across Midwest States
The affected air traffic control center manages airspace covering roughly 330,000 square miles and serves Minnesota plus nine other states: Michigan, Kansas, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Wisconsin. Flights arriving, departing, or passing through these regions were diverted or held on the ground during the outage.
Flight Groundings, Diversions, and Delays
Around Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport (MSP), delays averaged 90 minutes on the evening of August 20 as flights were
held due to the control center’s system failure. Similar delays were expected at other regional airports throughout the evening. Although the FAA confirmed the radar and ATC systems were restored the same day, operational disruptions persisted at several airports.
The FAA verified that the outage occurred at the air traffic control facility managing the regional airspace and not at MSP itself. Flight grounding and rerouting affected numerous carriers operating in the region, but specific airlines were not identified.
Travelers faced extended wait times and rerouted flights across the Midwest on August 20 as the system outage created broad interruption to
air travel for several hours.
