IFR rated pilot of a C152 got disoriented at night and suffered an near midair collision with an air...

Narrative:

I was flying back to my home airport at night and saw an airliner on approach to the nearby class C airport in the distance. My home airport is a class D airport just under the shelf of the class C airspace. About five minutes previous I was in contact with the class C approach controller and was cleared to proceed to my home airport. The lights from my home airport blend in all too well with the surrounding city lights and so I was flying toward what I thought was the airport. As the airliner approached toward me I had to quickly descend to around 900 ft MSL to avoid the plane as it passed over head at around 300 ft above my position. Normally airliners on approach in the shelf area stay above 1;700 ft MSL. After the plane passed overhead I noticed my position relative to a prominent landmark visible at night and realized I was quite a bit more west of my home airport than I thought. The altitude of this plane and the landmark led me to believe I had flown into the class C surface area by mistake. I of course quickly adjusted my course to fly to my airport and to get my self out of the class C surface area. This flight occurred late enough at night that my home airport's tower was closed for the night. What I learned from this is to use better situational awareness of my position at night. Something better than; 'I think the airport is over there.'

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: IFR rated pilot of a C152 got disoriented at night and suffered an NMAC with an airliner within the PDX Class C.

Narrative: I was flying back to my home airport at night and saw an airliner on approach to the nearby Class C airport in the distance. My home airport is a Class D airport just under the shelf of the Class C airspace. About five minutes previous I was in contact with the Class C Approach Controller and was cleared to proceed to my home airport. The lights from my home airport blend in all too well with the surrounding city lights and so I was flying toward what I thought was the airport. As the airliner approached toward me I had to quickly descend to around 900 FT MSL to avoid the plane as it passed over head at around 300 FT above my position. Normally airliners on approach in the shelf area stay above 1;700 FT MSL. After the plane passed overhead I noticed my position relative to a prominent landmark visible at night and realized I was quite a bit more west of my home airport than I thought. The altitude of this plane and the landmark led me to believe I had flown into the Class C surface area by mistake. I of course quickly adjusted my course to fly to my airport and to get my self out of the Class C surface area. This flight occurred late enough at night that my home airport's Tower was closed for the night. What I learned from this is to use better situational awareness of my position at night. Something better than; 'I think the airport is over there.'

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.

Attributes
ACN	847913
Time
Date	200908
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	TTD.Airport
State Reference	OR
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Cessna 152
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Descent
Route In Use	Direct
Flight Plan	VFR
Aircraft 2
Make Model Name	Commercial Fixed Wing
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Final Approach
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Pilot Flying Single Pilot
Qualification	Flight Crew Instrument Flight Crew Private
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 32 Flight Crew Total 201 Flight Crew Type 201
Events
Anomaly	Airspace Violation All Types Conflict NMAC
Miss Distance	Horizontal 300

IFR rated pilot of a C152 got disoriented at night and suffered an near midair collision with an airliner within the pdx class C.