The Federal Aviation Administration temporarily shut down an air traffic control facility in Minnesota on August 20, 2026, triggering an outage of radar and air traffic control systems managing a 330,000-square-mile airspace.
Flight operations across Minnesota and nine other Midwest states including Michigan, Kansas, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Wisconsin were disrupted. Aircraft were either held on the ground or diverted due to the outage affecting regional air traffic management, though Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport (MSP) itself was not directly affected by the outage.
At MSP, delays averaged 90 minutes on the evening of August 20. Similar extended
delays continued throughout the Midwest at multiple airports served by the affected air traffic control center.
The radar and air traffic control systems were restored later on August 20, but operational disruptions and flight delays continued at several airports in the region even after systems resumed service, according to the FAA.
