Incident Summary
On February 6, 2020, about 1400 central standard time, a Beech Super Kingair B200, registration N405PT, operating as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 personal flight, was substantially damaged when it exited the runway upon landing near St. Louis, Missouri. The commercial pilot and passenger were not injured.
Flight History
The pilot reported that this was the first flight after a phase maintenance inspection. He had picked up the airplane from the maintenance facility and intended to fly it to Spirit of St. Louis Airport (SUS), St. Louis, Missouri. Upon departure from North Little Rock Municipal Airport (ORK), North Little Rock, Arkansas, the pilot heard the main landing gear retract but the gear indication light remained red, indicating a gear in-transit status. The pilot noted that he had experienced this anomaly before and was not concerned.
During the approach to SUS, the pilot heard the main landing gear extend but did not receive three green landing gear indication lights. He visually confirmed that the main landing gear were extended but could not see the nose landing gear. He requested a low pass in front of the air traffic control tower, who confirmed all of the landing gear appeared to be down. The pilot then went through the emergency landing gear extension procedure to manually extend the landing gear and felt resistance on the handle, consistent with the landing gear being extended. The pilot stated that at this point he believed there was a wiring issue with the landing gear indicator light.
Landing and Runway Excursion
The pilot explained that he attempted to slow the airplane down as much as possible before touching down. The landing seemed normal until the airplane veered hard to the left. He tried to correct with right rudder input, but it had no effect, so he used right brake to steer the airplane back to the right. The airplane turned hard right, exited the runway, and slid left wing first into the grass. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage structure.
Post-Accident Examination
According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) aviation safety inspector (ASI) who responded, the airplane came to rest with all three landing gear collapsed. The landing gear handle was in the "DOWN" position. There were skid marks and propeller strike indications on the runway leading to the point that the airplane left the pavement, consistent with the nose landing gear collapsing prior to departing the runway surface. The FAA ASI reported that the nose landing gear upper drag brace, the nose landing gear actuator, and the nose landing gear steering links were all fractured during the accident sequence. The damage to the nose landing gear assembly precluded further testing, and investigators were not able to determine which component failed first.