Just days after Brazil’s deadliest plane crash, a radar outage over the Amazon spread the country’s aviation crisis overseas, spawning ripple-effect delays at a half-dozen U.S. airports.

On Sunday, North Americans were feeling the effects of the aviation problems that have been roiling Brazil for nearly a year.

“I’m stuck in Miami until Tuesday night,” said Lisa White, a geology professor at San Francisco State University whose Friday flight from Miami to Rio was turned back because of the problems in Brazil.

The radar failure occurred during the wee hours of Saturday morning, peak travel time between Brazil and the United States. For nearly three hours, air traffic controllers closed Brazilian air space, forcing more than 20 international flights to be diverted or canceled. Planes had to return to their points of origin or make unscheduled stops at other airports as far flung as San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Santiago, Chile.

Two American Airlines planes traveling from Sao Paulo were forced to make unscheduled landings in the jungle city of Manaus and at least four planes were forced to return to Miami. A United Airlines flight from Washington carrying 73 athletes to Rio de Janeiro for the Pan American Games was canceled, forcing the athletes to arrive a day late.