Bonanza 36
Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Private
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 33; Flight Crew Total 702; Flight Crew Type 598
Fatigue; Situational Awareness
Airspace Violation All Types; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Returned To Clearance
Human Factors
I was entering the San Francisco Bay Area airspace on VFR flight following to SQL and erroneously thought I had SQL in sight. In fact it was PAO. I told approach I had the airport in sight and was handed off to SQL Tower. Tower told me to report 3 mile final Runway 30. I erroneously turned toward PAO and began my approach. About 3 miles out I realized the airport did not look correct (the terminal was not on the east side of the field as I had remembered 3 years before). I realized my mistake and began to correct when Tower queried me and I began my correction. I breached PAO airspace during my correction. While there is no excuse; there were many factors which led to this mistake:This was the conclusion of my second cross country flight of the day. Fatigue had set in by the conclusion of the flight which factored into negating the knowledge of the airport and airspace that I had studied the night before and early the morning of the flight. It had also been 3 years since I had flown into San Carlos.When I saw PAO I just 'went visual' and ignored my instruments. It wasn't until I realized my mistake and began correcting that I recognized the full deflection of the visual approach that I loaded. I thought I was on an intercept course; however I was not.Another factor to the incursion was that when I loaded the visual approach the 'magenta line' disappears. I was on a direct course and would have recognized my deviation much faster if I hadn't loaded the approach until I was 100% sure I was approaching the correct airport. Actions that could have prevented the incursion:Study the destination airport just before departure; not a leg before.Stay on flight following until they hand you to Tower and I am sure I have the airport in sight. Use my secondary GPS magenta line guidance when I load the visual approach.Be more focused on identifying landmarks. Fly IFR into complex unfamiliar airspace. Recognize that fatigue will set in after so many hours of flying much of which was above 10;000 ft.
Bonanza pilot reported fatigue; resulting in a visual approach to the wrong airport and a Class D airspace incursion.