Narrative:

During the approach and inside jalto on the ILS for runway 27R at an altitude of approximately 1;900 MSL; we received a 'too low terrain' egpws aural warning. Since we were in IMC I immediately executed a missed approach. We attempted another ILS to runway 27R with the exact same results. A third approach; this time an RNAV to runway 27R was attempted; and again got the same warning; at the same altitude and executed a 3rd go around and contacted maintenance control. I flew while the captain; jumpseater; and the relief pilot ran checklists; talked to ATC; and consulted maintenance control. ATC misunderstood the captain thinking it was a glideslope issue and gave us reports that no other planes were having ILS/GS issues. We contacted maintenance control and they suggested that we pull and reset the circuit breaker. We did as instructed and a successful ILS to runway 27R and landing was accomplished. Everything worked normally. The phl weather had improved to 2;700 ft ovc and 5 miles.the weather at our alternate (bwi) was marginal and we were concerned that we would get the same result on an approach to any airport we selected so we had our dispatcher looking for suitable VFR alternate. Luckily this wasn't required. I spoke to a commuter air carrier crew shortly after this situation and they advised they too had had to execute several missed approaches into phl on the same runway for what we both deemed 'erroneous' GPWS messages. I'm not sure if this is a plane issue or an airport issue even though the problem seemed to be resolved with recycling of the circuit breaker.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A widebody air carrier flight crew reported receipt of repeated EGPWS warnings inside JALTO on ILS and RNAV approaches to Runway 27R at PHL.

Narrative: During the approach and inside JALTO on the ILS for Runway 27R at an altitude of approximately 1;900 MSL; we received a 'too low terrain' EGPWS aural warning. Since we were in IMC I immediately executed a missed approach. We attempted another ILS to Runway 27R with the exact same results. A third approach; this time an RNAV to Runway 27R was attempted; and again got the same warning; at the same altitude and executed a 3rd Go Around and contacted Maintenance Control. I flew while the Captain; jumpseater; and the Relief Pilot ran checklists; talked to ATC; and consulted Maintenance Control. ATC misunderstood the Captain thinking it was a glideslope issue and gave us reports that no other planes were having ILS/GS issues. We contacted Maintenance Control and they suggested that we pull and reset the Circuit Breaker. We did as instructed and a successful ILS to Runway 27R and landing was accomplished. Everything worked normally. The PHL weather had improved to 2;700 FT OVC and 5 miles.The weather at our alternate (BWI) was marginal and we were concerned that we would get the same result on an approach to any airport we selected so we had our Dispatcher looking for suitable VFR alternate. Luckily this wasn't required. I spoke to a commuter air carrier crew shortly after this situation and they advised they too had had to execute several missed approaches into PHL on the same runway for what we both deemed 'erroneous' GPWS messages. I'm not sure if this is a plane issue or an airport issue even though the problem seemed to be resolved with recycling of the circuit breaker.

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.