| Crash location | 38.662222°N, 90.651944°W |
| Nearest city | Chesterfield, MO
38.663108°N, 90.577067°W 4.0 miles away |
| Tail number | N558B |
|---|---|
| Accident date | 19 Oct 2004 |
| Aircraft type | Beech B-55 |
| Additional details: | None |
On October 19, 2004, at 1650 central daylight time, a Beech 55, N558B, operated by Skyline Aeronautics, LLC, as a rental airplane, received substantial damage when it impacted the runway during a bounced landing on runway 26L (7,485 feet by 150 feet) at Spirit of St. Louis Airport, Chesterfield, Missouri. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident. The 14 CFR Part 91 business flight was operating on an instrument rules flight plan. The pilot was uninjured. The flight departed from Colonel James Jabara Airport, Wichita, Kansas, at 1500 central daylight time, and was en route to Spirit of St. Louis Airport, Chesterfield, Missouri.
The pilot stated that following an instrument landing system approach to runway 26L, he was distracted when he dropped his approach plates while the airplane was about 10 feet above the runway. The airplane nose wheel then impacted the runway, and the airplane bounced.
Inspection of the accident site by a Federal Aviation Administration inspector revealed the presence of airplane tire debris from the runway and along the taxiway leading to the fixed base operator from where the pilot rented the airplane. The inspector estimated the taxi distance from the runway to the fixed base operator to be about 2 miles.
The diverted attention and the inadequate flare by the pilot during landing.