Narrative:

We were being radar vectored by spokane approach control for the visual approach to runway 21 at night in VMC conditions. We were cleared by approach control to descend to 9;000 feet MSL. Before reaching 9;000 feet we were cleared to 6;500 feet MSL. We discussed that the MSA for our sector (southeast) was 5;300 feet and that the egpws display didn't show any threats. We continued the descent and leveled off at 6;500 feet. The egpws still did not show any threats while level at 6;500. A few minutes after leveling at 6;500 (approximately 20 NM southeast of the airport); the egpws highest elevation number on the nd map turned yellow and we immediately got an egpws 'terrain; terrain; pull up' warning. No egpws caution was issued prior to the warning. No red or yellow terrain was ever displayed on the nd map. We immediately executed a CFIT recovery maneuver and leveled off at 7;500 feet MSL. We did not notice if radio altitude was displayed during the event. We immediately notified ATC of the egpws terrain warning and that we were level at 7;500 feet. ATC responded by asking if we received the warning while descending to 6;500 feet. We replied that we were in level flight at 6;500 feet when the warning occurred and they said that they showed 6;500 feet as a 'good altitude' for the area we were in. The rest of the approach and landing were completed without incident. After landing; we entered the event in the aircraft maintenance logbook because we were unable to definitively determine that the warning was valid and we wanted to ensure that any potential issue with the egpws system was investigated by aircraft maintenance.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A300 Captain reported receiving an EGPWS terrain warning on a night visual approach to GEG airport. It is not clear whether this was a valid warning or an equipment malfunction.

Narrative: We were being radar vectored by Spokane Approach Control for the visual approach to Runway 21 at night in VMC conditions. We were cleared by Approach Control to descend to 9;000 feet MSL. Before reaching 9;000 feet we were cleared to 6;500 feet MSL. We discussed that the MSA for our sector (southeast) was 5;300 feet and that the EGPWS display didn't show any threats. We continued the descent and leveled off at 6;500 feet. The EGPWS still did not show any threats while level at 6;500. A few minutes after leveling at 6;500 (approximately 20 NM southeast of the airport); the EGPWS highest elevation number on the ND map turned yellow and we immediately got an EGPWS 'Terrain; Terrain; Pull Up' warning. No EGPWS caution was issued prior to the warning. No red or yellow terrain was ever displayed on the ND map. We immediately executed a CFIT recovery maneuver and leveled off at 7;500 feet MSL. We did not notice if radio altitude was displayed during the event. We immediately notified ATC of the EGPWS terrain warning and that we were level at 7;500 feet. ATC responded by asking if we received the warning while descending to 6;500 feet. We replied that we were in level flight at 6;500 feet when the warning occurred and they said that they showed 6;500 feet as a 'good altitude' for the area we were in. The rest of the approach and landing were completed without incident. After landing; we entered the event in the aircraft maintenance logbook because we were unable to definitively determine that the warning was valid and we wanted to ensure that any potential issue with the EGPWS system was investigated by aircraft maintenance.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site 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.