This paper describes an estimation method of the structural failure probability based on a directional importance sampling simulation combined with a partition of the region method. A structural failure probability is formulated by using a radial variable and a directional vector. Radial variable samples are generated from a truncated chi-square p.d.f: defined outside the fl-sphere region. Directional vector samples are determined by an importance sampling p.d.f centered on the design point and directional importance sampling probability densities at the respective sampled directions are evaluated numerically. Numerical examples show that the proposed method gives accurate estimations of structural failure probabilities efficiently.