Narrative:

Flight to avp. Conditions were night; VFR; unlimited visibility. I was acting as pilot monitoring and line check airman (lca); my first officer was a new hire acting as pilot flying.approach vectored us on a right downwind for runway 22. We called the field in sight and were cleared for the visual approach. Having experience at this airport I was aware of the terrain and tall towers in the vicinity and made a mental note to identify terrain and obstacle heights that would be a factor. Visibility was excellent and prior to beginning the approach we were able to visually identify the multiple high intensity lit towers including the highest one as depicted on the 11-2 chart (height 2;744). Abeam the airport my first officer descended from 4;000 to 3;000. At this time we were roughly 3-4 NM abeam the airport. The downwind path that we were on kept us inside of the 2;744 foot tower. Beyond that tower is another high intensity lit tower at 2;125 feet. I had visual of that tower as well; and our path on the downwind appeared to also keep us just inside of it. I am not sure if my first officer saw it as well. As my first officer was judging when to begin his base turn we got the egpws warning 'terrain; pull up.' my first officer immediately began a terrain escape maneuver. I knew that we were close to the 2;125 foot tower; but did not think we were close enough to get the egpws warning. I instructed my first officer to climb a few hundred feet and make his base turn. We completed the visual approach without further incident.upon landing we went through an in depth debrief on what happened. We were able to discuss that descending to 3;000 feet was sufficient to keep him 1;000 feet above the terrain in the vicinity; but less than 1;000 feet from the obstacles. We also debriefed possible solutions to prevent something like this in the future including.1. A thorough briefing of a visual approach in mountainous terrain to including identifying of terrain heights and obstacles.2. Flying a tighter traffic pattern; and3. Possibly requesting an ILS even on excellent visibility nights.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: CRJ flight crew reported receiving a GPWS terrain warning on a night visual approach to AVP.

Narrative: Flight to AVP. Conditions were night; VFR; unlimited visibility. I was acting as pilot monitoring and Line Check Airman (LCA); my First Officer was a new hire acting as pilot flying.Approach vectored us on a right downwind for Runway 22. We called the field in sight and were cleared for the visual approach. Having experience at this airport I was aware of the terrain and tall towers in the vicinity and made a mental note to identify terrain and obstacle heights that would be a factor. Visibility was excellent and prior to beginning the approach we were able to visually identify the multiple high intensity lit towers including the highest one as depicted on the 11-2 chart (height 2;744). Abeam the airport my First Officer descended from 4;000 to 3;000. At this time we were roughly 3-4 NM abeam the airport. The downwind path that we were on kept us inside of the 2;744 foot tower. Beyond that tower is another high intensity lit tower at 2;125 feet. I had visual of that tower as well; and our path on the downwind appeared to also keep us just inside of it. I am not sure if my First Officer saw it as well. As my First Officer was judging when to begin his base turn we got the EGPWS warning 'Terrain; Pull Up.' My First Officer immediately began a terrain escape maneuver. I knew that we were close to the 2;125 foot tower; but did not think we were close enough to get the EGPWS warning. I instructed my First Officer to climb a few hundred feet and make his base turn. We completed the visual approach without further incident.Upon landing we went through an in depth debrief on what happened. We were able to discuss that descending to 3;000 feet was sufficient to keep him 1;000 feet above the terrain in the vicinity; but less than 1;000 feet from the obstacles. We also debriefed possible solutions to prevent something like this in the future including.1. A thorough briefing of a visual approach in mountainous terrain to including identifying of terrain heights and obstacles.2. Flying a tighter traffic pattern; and3. Possibly requesting an ILS even on excellent visibility nights.

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.