Colgan Air Flight 9446 was a repositioning flight operated by

Colgan Air Colgan Air was an American certificated regional airline subsidiary of Pinnacle Airlines Corp. The headquarters of Colgan Air were located in Memphis, Tennessee. Colgan Air operated for Continental Express/United Express, and US Airways Expre ...

for

US Airways Express US Airways Express was the brand name for the regional affiliate of US Airways, under which a number of individually owned commuter air carriers and regional airlines operate short and medium haul routes. This code sharing service was previously ...

. On August 26, 2003, the

Beech 1900D The Beechcraft 1900 is a 19-passenger, pressurized twin-engine turboprop regional airliner manufactured by Beechcraft. It is also used as a freight aircraft and corporate transport, and by several governmental and military organizations. With ...

crashed into water offshore from

Yarmouth, Massachusetts Yarmouth ( ) is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States, Barnstable County being coextensive with Cape Cod. The population was 23,793 at the 2010 census. The town is made up of three major villages: South Yarmouth, West Yarmou ...

shortly after taking off from

Barnstable Municipal Airport Cape Cod Gateway Airport , also known as Boardman/Polando Field and formerly known as Barnstable Municipal Airport, is a public airport located on Cape Cod, north of the central business district of Hyannis, in Barnstable County, Massachusetts ...

in Hyannis. Both pilots were killed.

Aircraft and crew

Flight 9446 was an unscheduled

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flight of a

Beechcraft 1900D The Beechcraft 1900 is a 19-passenger, pressurized twin-engine turboprop regional airliner manufactured by Beechcraft. It is also used as a freight aircraft and corporate transport, and by several governmental and military organizations. With c ...

(

registration Register or registration may refer to: Arts entertainment, and media Music * Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc. * ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller * Registration (organ), the ...

'). The aircraft had just finished receiving maintenance and was being repositioned to

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York City ...

to return to revenue service. The two occupants of the plane were its pilots, Captain Scott Knabe (39) and First Officer Steven Dean (38). Captain Knabe had been with Colgan Air for two years and had 2,891 flight hours, including 1,364 hours on the Beechcraft 1900. Dean had been with the airline for less than a year and had 2,489 flight hours, 689 of which were on the Beechcraft 1900.

Accident

Flight 9446 departed Barnstable Municipal Airport on August 26, 2003, at 15:40 EDT. Shortly after takeoff, the crew declared an emergency and reported a trim problem. The aircraft entered into a left turn and reached an altitude of . The pilots requested a return to Barnstable, and

air traffic control Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airs ...

cleared the flight to land on any runway. The airplane continued its left turn in a nose-up attitude, and then pitched down and crashed into water near the airport.

Investigation and aftermath

The

National Transportation Safety Board The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and incid ...

(NTSB) investigated the accident. The NTSB determined that Flight 9446 was the first flight after maintenance personnel had replaced the forward

elevator An elevator or lift is a wire rope, cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or deck (building), decks of a building, watercraft, ...

trim cable. The maintenance personnel had skipped a step in the maintenance process. In addition, the aircraft maintenance manual depicted the elevator trim drum backwards. As a result, the trim system was configured in a manner that caused the trim tabs in the cockpit to move in the correct direction. However, the actual trim wheel (which controlled the flight control surfaces) moved in the opposite direction. The NTSB also determined that the pilots did not notice the maintenance error because the captain failed to perform a

preflight checklist In aviation, a preflight checklist is a list of tasks that should be performed by pilots and aircrew prior to takeoff. Its purpose is to improve flight safety by ensuring that no important tasks are forgotten. Failure to correctly conduct a pref ...

, which included an elevator trim check. The pilots manually set nose-up trim prior to departure. However, because of the improper maintenance, this set the elevator trim to the full nose-down position. 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. Investigators programmed a flight simulator with the improper trim settings and made six simulated flights. Five attempts resulted in crashes shortly after takeoff; in one attempt, the simulator pilot could circle for a landing but impacted terrain while attempting to land. The NTSB published its findings and determination of probable cause on August 31, 2004. The NTSB determined that the probable causes of the accident were the maintenance crew's improper replacement of the forward elevator trim cable and the subsequent inadequate functional check of the maintenance performed. 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. After the NTSB's final report was published, ''Aero News Network'' observed that Beechcraft 1900D maintenance manuals were considered accident factors in two previous fatal accidents. 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.

References

Notes Sources *

External links

NTSB investigation docket

Cockpit Voice Recorder transcript and accident summary
{{Aviation incidents and accidents in 2003 Aviation accidents and incidents in the United States in 2003 Airliner accidents and incidents in Massachusetts Accidents and incidents involving the Beechcraft 1900 9446 Aviation accidents and incidents in Massachusetts Yarmouth, Massachusetts History of Barnstable County, Massachusetts 2003 in Massachusetts Airliner accidents and incidents caused by maintenance errors Airliner accidents and incidents caused by pilot error