Updated 11:04 p.m. Friday, Nov. 13, 2026.
An hours-long ground stop for all airports nationwide on Friday put travel in limbo for college football teams around the country, including Minnesota ahead of its game at Penn State scheduled for Saturday night.
It was not yet clear when whether the delay would impact the game, which has the advantage of being scheduled for a later start at 7 p.m. in Beaver Stadium. Pete Nakos of On3 and Randy Johnson of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune both reported on Friday night that the team expected to fly to State College on Saturday morning.
“Penn State is in communication with the Big Ten Conference and the University of Minnesota,” a Penn State Athletics spokesperson said. “We will continue to closely monitor the situation and will share updates when available.”
The Minnesota team had not yet departed for State College and was at Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport when the Federal Aviation Administration halted all flights because of a telecommunications issue, according to multiple reports. The team left the airport and returned to campus, 247 Sports reported.
The FAA ended the ground stop at about 8:15 p.m. Friday, saying airplane departures could resume.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy cautioned that catching up on the flight backlog at airports around the country is “gonna be slow” and said priority would be given to aircraft carrying larger numbers of passengers.
The FAA notice said the ground stop — the first of its kind since 2023 and only the second since Sept. 11, 2001 — was imposed “due to extraordinary circumstances and for reasons of safety.”
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin attributed the problem to a telecommunications outage and said there was no indication the communications failure was related to a cyberattack. Trump administration officials blamed “overloaded,” “outdated” systems.
The FAA was investigating a communication issue affecting the 22 regional air traffic control centers that direct planes en route between airports nationwide, said Duffy.
Among the approximately 11,000 delayed or canceled flights nationwide, at least 14 college football teams had their flights grounded and three changed plans to travel by bus, according to a running list published by On3.
Source: www.statecollege.com
