Embraer Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Instrument
Situational Awareness
ATC Issue All Types; Inflight Event / Encounter CFTT / CFIT
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Flight Crew Took Evasive Action; Flight Crew Requested ATC Assistance / Clarification
Human Factors; Procedure
While operating to EWR we were getting vectors for ILS 22L. We were instructed at this point by New York Approach and at around 10 miles WNW of PATRN to descend from 3;000 feet to 2;000 feet. My First Officer (FO) was Pilot Flying (PF) and he began a descent at 1;000 FPM to 2;000 feet as directed. When we reached about 2;200 feet we received a 'Terrain; Terrain; Pull Up' caution in the cockpit. We immediately executed our escape maneuver procedure per SOP and climbed to 2;500 feet. The caution cleared at around 2;300 feet. We continued our descent back to 2;000 feet and got another instruction from ATC to expedite to 2;000 feet and it's at this point I informed ATC of the reason for our deviation. ATC then told us again to expedite to 2;000 feet. As it was a dark night location we were unable to see the obstacle. As we were told to descend to 2;000 feet I told my FO that based on my experience; it was a very unusual instruction given our distance from the airfield. My experience in that area is to be in the region of 3;000-5;000 feet. As it was dark; I was unable to tell whether we were in a safe area. We were descending in normal parameters at 1000 FPM; however; we discussed that maybe it had to do with our closure rate with terrain and/or an obstacle like an antenna. I also looked on Google Earth for any obstructions that stood out and didn't find any. The coordinates of this event were very close to 40.9728 -74.2883 according to Flight Aware. In future I would query if given an altitude that low in that area or descend at 500 FPM; but it's hard to say if this would make a difference without any information on the actual obstacle.
EMB Captain reported responding to a GPWS terrain warning on approach into EWR.