Flights across nine Midwest states faced significant disruptions Thursday due to a temporary system outage at a Minneapolis air traffic control facility, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported.
The outage affected systems including radar and air traffic control, leading to planes being diverted or held on the ground. While the systems later came back online, disruptions persisted at several airports throughout the evening.
The affected facility manages air traffic over a 330,000-square-mile area and is distinct from the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport (MSP) itself.
At MSP, average delays reached 90 minutes Thursday evening. Other airports in Michigan, Kansas, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Wisconsin also experienced ongoing delays.
The FAA has launched an investigation into the cause of the system outage.