Flights heading into and leaving Minnesota along with nine other Midwest states were diverted or held on the ground on Thursday, August 19, 2026, due to a temporary system outage at a Minneapolis air traffic control facility. The affected facility manages air traffic across 330,000 square miles in the Midwest.
The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed widespread flight cancellations and delays resulting from the disruption. Radar and air traffic control systems at the Minneapolis facility experienced outages before coming back online. Despite system restoration, delays persisted at several airports in the region throughout the evening.
Operational Impact and Affected States
At Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport, flights
experienced average delays of 90 minutes on Thursday evening. Other airports across Michigan, Kansas, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Wisconsin reported ongoing delays and cancellations after the outage. The disruptions stemmed from the system outage affecting radar and control systems at the Minneapolis facility, not from issues directly at the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport.
