On August 26, 2003, the Beechcraft 1900D crashed into water 300 feet (91 m) offshore from Yarmouth, Massachusetts, shortly after taking off from Barnstable Municipal Airport in Hyannis.

The pilots requested a return to Barnstable, and air traffic control cleared the flight to land on any runway.

[9] The NTSB also determined that the pilots did not notice the maintenance error because the captain failed to perform a preflight checklist, which included an elevator trim check.

[9] The NTSB determined that it would have taken 250 pounds of force on the control yoke for the pilots to keep the plane airborne, making a safe landing nearly impossible.

The NTSB also identified the flight crew's failure to follow the checklist procedures and the aircraft manufacturer's erroneous depiction of the elevator trim drum in the maintenance manual as contributing to the accident.

However, Raytheon, the owner of Beechcraft, denied blame for the crash of Flight 9446, and a company spokesman said that the accident would not have happened without the Colgan Air maintenance crew's mistakes.