Narrative:

The aircraft is not GPS equipped and I was using an ipad with foreflight for VFR information. Enroute; I had looked up and entered the ZZZ unicom and ATIS frequencies and loaded them into my VHF radio. Shortly before arriving at ZZZ; my ipad battery failed and I had no paper backup in the plane. I was listening to ZZZ ATIS and reporting arriving from the south when I spotted the airport; which was not ZZZ; but ZZZ1. As I had not flown to either airport before I was not totally familiar with either one and did not have an airport diagram to refer to. I had previously tuned pdz VOR in the VHF navigation for DME backup and made a mental note [of distance of ZZZ from pdz]. Both airports are similar distance from pdz but different radials. There was little to no traffic so I announced my position (on ZZZ unicom) and landed and taxied to a parking area. I located a charge cable in the aircraft and plugged in my ipad. I was doing so when airport security arrived and asked me to contact the tower by phone. I advised them of the situation and was able to get the ground and tower frequencies on my ipad and communicate with them via VHF radio at that point.I advised my desire to fly to ZZZ; which I had apparently bypassed shortly after my ipad failed. I did so without incident and then flew on to ZZZ2; avoiding ZZZ3 class B airspace; ZZZ4 class C and communicating with approach enroute for traffic. All no problem having the necessary VFR information. I later on flew through the ZZZ3 special flight rules area (with which I am very familiar; having recently moved from that area) and communicated with approach for flight following down the coast; navigating around restricted airspace. The lesson to be learned is to; if you are using digital data such as an ipad; be sure it is adequately charged and have paper or other backup of your charts and frequency information. Visually familiarize yourself with destination airport location; description before departure. As instrument pilots we sometimes tend to become too dependent on electronic information rather than old fashioned visual clues that we learned as students. We actually need both; obviously.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: BE33 pilot reported battery failure in iPad and landed at the wrong airport.

Narrative: The aircraft is not GPS equipped and I was using an iPad with Foreflight for VFR information. Enroute; I had looked up and entered the ZZZ Unicom and ATIS frequencies and loaded them into my VHF radio. Shortly before arriving at ZZZ; my iPad battery failed and I had no paper backup in the plane. I was listening to ZZZ ATIS and reporting arriving from the south when I spotted the airport; which was not ZZZ; but ZZZ1. As I had not flown to either airport before I was not totally familiar with either one and did not have an airport diagram to refer to. I had previously tuned PDZ VOR in the VHF NAV for DME backup and made a mental note [of distance of ZZZ from PDZ]. Both airports are similar distance from PDZ but different radials. There was little to no traffic so I announced my position (on ZZZ Unicom) and landed and taxied to a parking area. I located a charge cable in the aircraft and plugged in my iPad. I was doing so when airport security arrived and asked me to contact the Tower by phone. I advised them of the situation and was able to get the Ground and Tower frequencies on my iPad and communicate with them via VHF radio at that point.I advised my desire to fly to ZZZ; which I had apparently bypassed shortly after my iPad failed. I did so without incident and then flew on to ZZZ2; avoiding ZZZ3 Class B airspace; ZZZ4 Class C and communicating with approach enroute for traffic. All no problem having the necessary VFR information. I later on flew through the ZZZ3 special flight rules area (with which I am very familiar; having recently moved from that area) and communicated with approach for flight following down the coast; navigating around restricted airspace. The lesson to be learned is to; if you are using digital data such as an iPad; be sure it is adequately charged and have paper or other backup of your charts and frequency information. Visually familiarize yourself with destination airport location; description before departure. As instrument pilots we sometimes tend to become too dependent on electronic information rather than old fashioned visual clues that we learned as students. We actually need both; obviously.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.