An air carrier aircraft's GPWS alerted on a night VMC while descending to capture the glide slope. T...

Attributes
ACN	845734
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	Commercial Fixed Wing
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	Flight Engineer / Second Officer Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Flight Engineer Flight Crew Commercial Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP) Flight Crew Flight Instructor Flight Crew Multiengine Flight Crew Instrument
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 82 Flight Crew Total 6200 Flight Crew Type 755
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe

Narrative:

During approach our aircraft's GPWS activated and gave us a 'whoop whoop pull up terrain'. At the time we were 9 plus mile from the approach end of runway 16R at 7200 feet MSL. Our descent rate was 700 FPM. The pilot flying was the captain with the first officer monitoring. We were intercepting the localizer well above glideslope and outside the FAF. We evaluated the situation instantly through crew coordination determined it was a false activation and continued the approach and landing without further incident. On the ground maintenance checked our GPWS system and found no faults for our leg confirming it was a false alert.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An air carrier aircraft's GPWS alerted on a night VMC while descending to capture the glide slope. The aircraft was 9 miles from the runway at 7;200' with a 700 foot per minute descent rate.

Narrative: During approach our aircraft's GPWS activated and gave us a 'whoop whoop pull up terrain'. At the time we were 9 plus mile from the approach end of runway 16R at 7200 feet MSL. Our descent rate was 700 FPM. The pilot flying was the Captain with the First Officer monitoring. We were intercepting the localizer well above glideslope and outside the FAF. We evaluated the situation instantly through crew coordination determined it was a false activation and continued the approach and landing without further incident. On the ground maintenance checked our GPWS system and found no faults for our leg confirming it was a false alert.

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.