Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Distraction; Situational Awareness
ATC Issue All Types; Inflight Event / Encounter CFTT / CFIT
Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Took Evasive Action
Human Factors; Procedure
We were asked by University Park Tower to fly the right base to final approach runway 24. While on the base leg just about to initiate the turn to final; I heard the 'terrain; terrain; pull up; pull up'. I was non-flying pilot and took the controls to initiate the climb procedure to clear the terrain pull up warning. Once we were cleared of the warning; I transferred control to the first officer to continue the approach.The threats that I encountered was that it was very dark; and the terrain was not visible. I was also bothered by the fact that Tower asked us to fly the base to final approach at 2700 feet. Noting the chart the approach safe altitude shows an initial 3100 feet. In my view; I did not listen to the voice inside me telling me to fly this portion of the approach at 3100 feet. I am somewhat familiar with the airport area and took it for granted that the Tower was giving us a reasonable altitude. I was also a bit distracted by looking forward to spending the night at State College which tells me that I was not completely present.While flying an approach at night time; ask for vectors for an instrument approach to be more conservative with the transition to the approach corridor. Continued adherence to the Flight Operations Manual and training that was received in the training center set us up to take corrective action to keep us safe.
Air Carrier Captain reported receiving a GPWS terrain alert on a night visual approach to UNV airport.