An air carrier first officer reported a near miss with a jump aircraft which fay TRACON said had the...

Narrative:

We were descending into fay. Our initial clearance was 9;000 ft. ATC issued a 080 heading; stating this was for a parachute airplane at 8;500 ft. Shortly after ATC recleared us to 3;000 ft saying the jump aircraft had us in sight and will maintain visual separation. I read back the clearance and continued to look for the aircraft. He appeared on TCAS as a solid blue diamond; then turned amber with a traffic aural shortly after. We still did not see him. We turned on all our lights. As we were descending through his altitude; we received a climb RA; immediately followed by a descend RA. Captain followed the given commands; and we finally saw the traffic. It appeared he did not have the strobe lights on and we also did not see any navigation lights. He was banking away from us as we descended through his altitude. ATC descended us through a VFR airplane's altitude. ATC assumed that the VFR aircraft would maintain visual separation with us. To us it did not appear that he had us in sight until the very last second after we initiated RA commands and he needed to bank away from us. Be more alert to ATC clearances at night time especially when only one airplane as the other airplane in sight. Also make airplanes easier to pick out at night time (turn on landing/taxi lights).

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An air carrier First Officer reported a near miss with a jump aircraft which FAY TRACON said had them in sight and would maintain visual. The jump aircraft had no lights on and turned away as the air carrier passed close by.

Narrative: We were descending into FAY. Our initial clearance was 9;000 FT. ATC issued a 080 heading; stating this was for a parachute airplane at 8;500 FT. Shortly after ATC recleared us to 3;000 FT saying the jump aircraft had us in sight and will maintain visual separation. I read back the clearance and continued to look for the aircraft. He appeared on TCAS as a solid blue diamond; then turned amber with a TRAFFIC aural shortly after. We still did not see him. We turned on all our lights. As we were descending through his altitude; we received a CLIMB RA; immediately followed by a descend RA. Captain followed the given commands; and we finally saw the traffic. It appeared he did not have the strobe lights on and we also did not see any navigation lights. He was banking away from us as we descended through his altitude. ATC descended us through a VFR airplane's altitude. ATC assumed that the VFR aircraft would maintain visual separation with us. To us it did not appear that he had us in sight until the very last second after we initiated RA commands and he needed to bank away from us. Be more alert to ATC clearances at night time especially when only one airplane as the other airplane in sight. Also make airplanes easier to pick out at night time (turn on landing/taxi lights).

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	919812
Time
Date	201011
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	FAY.Airport
State Reference	NC
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Light Transport Low Wing 2 Turbojet Eng
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Descent
Route In Use	Vectors
Flight Plan	IFR
Aircraft 2
Make Model Name	Any Unknown or Unlisted Aircraft Manufacturer
Person 1
Function	First Officer Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Commercial
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types Conflict NMAC
Miss Distance	Horizontal 0 Vertical 400

An air carrier first officer reported a near miss with a jump aircraft which fay TRACON said had them in sight and would maintain visual. The jump aircraft had no lights on and turned away as the air carrier passed close by.