Air carrier flight crew agreed not to respond to an egpws terrain warning on descent into rno on a c...

Attributes
ACN	845008
Time
Date	200907
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	RNO.Airport
State Reference	NV
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Large Transport Low Wing 3 Turbojet Eng
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Final Approach
Route In Use	Visual Approach
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	GPWS
Person 1
Function	Pilot Flying Captain
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP) Flight Crew Flight Instructor Flight Crew Flight Engineer
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 300 Flight Crew Total 10000 Flight Crew Type 3000
Person 2
Function	Pilot Not Flying First Officer
Qualification	Flight Crew Instrument Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP) Flight Crew Multiengine
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 56 Flight Crew Total 7406 Flight Crew Type 2184
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy

Narrative:

On approach into reno 16R base leg; we were cleared to intercept the localizer about 9 miles from the end of the runway. We were 1/2 dot above glideslope intercept; our descent rate was 700 FPM and the localizer was was just starting to move. As we turned to intercept the localizer we heard the GPWS alert 'terrain whoop whoop pull up'. This alert happened only once and was a partial alert. The whole alert would have been 'terrain; terrain; whoop whoop pull up'. The conditions were cavu; we were over the city with excellent visibility of the airport and surrounding area; and we were in the slot to land. No indication from the tower that we were not where we were supposed to be. It was clearly a transient alert with no validity to it. We had no indication on the egpws of any terrain. We all agreed this was a random alert (they have happened before). Common sense dictated it was safer for us to continue to land rather than to perform the escape maneuver into mountainous terrain. On the ground maintenance performed a system check and concurred that there was no indication on the system of a true GPWS alert. We wrote up the event in the logbook for tracking by maintenance.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air Carrier flight crew agreed not to respond to an EGPWS Terrain warning on descent into RNO on a CAVU night.

Narrative: On approach into Reno 16R base leg; we were cleared to intercept the localizer about 9 miles from the end of the runway. We were 1/2 dot above glideslope intercept; our descent rate was 700 FPM and the localizer was was just starting to move. As we turned to intercept the localizer we heard the GPWS alert 'terrain whoop whoop pull up'. This alert happened only once and was a partial alert. The whole alert would have been 'terrain; terrain; whoop whoop pull up'. The conditions were CAVU; we were over the city with excellent visibility of the airport and surrounding area; and we were in the slot to land. No indication from the tower that we were not where we were supposed to be. It was clearly a transient alert with no validity to it. We had no indication on the EGPWS of any terrain. We all agreed this was a random alert (they have happened before). Common sense dictated it was safer for us to continue to land rather than to perform the escape maneuver into mountainous terrain. On the ground maintenance performed a system check and concurred that there was no indication on the system of a true GPWS alert. We wrote up the event in the logbook for tracking by maintenance.

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.

Air carrier flight crew agreed not to respond to an egpws terrain warning on descent into rno on a cavu night.