B747 captain reports a false egpws terrain warning during ILS to runway 9 at etar in day VMC. The sy...

Narrative:

Approach to etar daylight; cavok; ILS runway 09. We were about 6 NM out tracking the localizer inbound to runway 09. The first officer (PF) had just called for gear down as we intercepted the glide slope and approach (gca controller) directed us to contact tower. At this point we got the egpws warning: terrain terrain pull up pull up. We had the field insight and were on the glide slope with the PAPI clearly visible. It was a major distraction at a busy time. I directed that the egpws be overridden and I contacted the tower and obtained landing clearance. We completed an uneventful landing on runway 09. Had this happened at night or in IMC we would have executed an immediate missed approach. I suspected a database corruption. Some airports that we operate into are not in the database or a particular runway is not in the database; in these situations we are directed by the briefing page or by notam to place the egpws system to override prior to conducting the approach to avoid a false egpws warning. At etar we had no such information to go on. In the past I have made several arrivals at rms uneventfully and I remembered no special egpws instructions. Egpws is a vital safety system along with TCAS and is in my opinion is one of the most important enhancements to safety that we have adopted in the past 20 years.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B747 Captain reports a false EGPWS terrain warning during ILS to Runway 9 at ETAR in day VMC. The system is overridden and the approach is continued to landing.

Narrative: Approach to ETAR daylight; CAVOK; ILS Runway 09. We were about 6 NM out tracking the LOC inbound to Runway 09. The First Officer (PF) had just called for gear down as we intercepted the glide slope and Approach (GCA controller) directed us to contact Tower. At this point we got the EGPWS WARNING: TERRAIN TERRAIN PULL UP PULL UP. We had the field insight and were on the glide slope with the PAPI clearly visible. It was a major distraction at a busy time. I directed that the EGPWS be overridden and I contacted the Tower and obtained Landing clearance. We completed an uneventful landing on Runway 09. Had this happened at night or in IMC we would have executed an immediate missed approach. I suspected a database corruption. Some airports that we operate into are not in the database or a particular runway is not in the database; in these situations we are directed by the briefing page or by Notam to place the EGPWS system to OVERRIDE prior to conducting the approach to avoid a FALSE EGPWS WARNING. At ETAR we had no such information to go on. In the past I have made several arrivals at RMS uneventfully and I remembered no special EGPWS instructions. EGPWS is a vital safety system along with TCAS and is in my opinion is one of the most important enhancements to SAFETY that we have adopted in the past 20 years.

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	1103744
Time
Date	201307
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	ETAR.Airport
State Reference	FO
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B747 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Final Approach
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	GPWS
Person 1
Function	Captain Pilot Not Flying
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 220 Flight Crew Total 24000 Flight Crew Type 4500
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe

B747 captain reports a false egpws terrain warning during ILS to runway 9 at etar in day VMC. The system is overridden and the approach is continued to landing.