An air carrier on an ewr ILS 22R circle to land 29; lost the runway 29 runway lights in the city bac...

Narrative:

ILS 22R circle to land 29 at ewr. Began circle to land procedure just inside FAF on ILS 22R at approximately 1;200 ft. Runway 29 was clearly visible in front of us as we began the turn to downwind. Runway 29 had been preprogrammed into fmcs RT2 with 5 NM runway extension. RT2 was activated and the 5 NM point extended upon initiation of the downwind turn. Shortly after completing the downwind turn (approximately 110 heading); ATC directed us to start the base turn. The base turn -as directed - was well inside the 5 NM point depicted on the map view. Though the runway was discernible when we initiated the downwind turn; it proved increasingly difficult to keep visual contact once we began our turn to base (runway 29 was lost in a sea of surrounding city lights). To further compound the problem; we had insidiously initiated a descent away from the circling altitude as we turned back to intercept final. We were on a dogleg heading; right of the extended centerline when the GPWS - too low obstacle warning was heard at approximately 500 ft; we initiated a climb; reported the go-around and ultimately leveled at 5;000 ft per ATC instruction. We flew an uneventful subsequent approach to runway 22R.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An Air Carrier on an EWR ILS 22R Circle to Land 29; lost the Runway 29 runway lights in the city background lights; descended too early and executed a go around after an EGPWS TOO LOW OBSTACLE warning.

Narrative: ILS 22R circle to land 29 at EWR. Began circle to land procedure just inside FAF on ILS 22R at approximately 1;200 FT. Runway 29 was clearly visible in front of us as we began the turn to downwind. Runway 29 had been preprogrammed into FMCS RT2 with 5 NM Runway extension. RT2 was activated and the 5 NM point extended upon initiation of the downwind turn. Shortly after completing the downwind turn (approximately 110 heading); ATC directed us to start the base turn. The base turn -as directed - was well inside the 5 NM point depicted on the map view. Though the runway was discernible when we initiated the downwind turn; it proved increasingly difficult to keep visual contact once we began our turn to base (Runway 29 was lost in a sea of surrounding city lights). To further compound the problem; we had insidiously initiated a descent away from the circling altitude as we turned back to intercept final. We were on a dogleg heading; right of the extended centerline when the GPWS - TOO LOW OBSTACLE warning was heard at approximately 500 FT; we initiated a climb; reported the go-around and ultimately leveled at 5;000 FT per ATC instruction. We flew an uneventful subsequent approach to Runway 22R.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 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	1030428
Time
Date	201208
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	EWR.Airport
State Reference	NY
Environment
Flight Conditions	Mixed
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Large Transport Low Wing 2 Turbojet Eng
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Final Approach
Route In Use	Visual Approach
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	First Officer Pilot Not Flying
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Inflight Event / Encounter CFTT / CFIT Inflight Event / Encounter Unstabilized Approach

An air carrier on an ewr ILS 22R circle to land 29; lost the runway 29 runway lights in the city background lights; descended too early and executed a go around after an egpws too low obstacle warning.