Provincetown-Boston Airline NAMC YS-11A-205
N187P
(c/n 2061)
In 1984, to expand its seat capacity, and since Martin
404s were rather thin on the ground at
that point in time,
PBA acquired several ex-Piedmont YS-11s which by then had been sold off
to Pyramid
Airlines. I think in all they had five or six of them, and
they were used on both the
Northern and Southern
Systems. The FAA had grounded PBA in November of 1984 citing
safety issues.
Service was resumed the next month with Cessna 402s and Bandeirantes,
but it
took longer to re-certify
the DC-3s and YS-11s. Robert M. Campbell caught
N187P at
Liberty International
Airport (the fancy new
name for Newark, NJ) in November 1988.
Provincetown-Boston Airline filed for
bankruptcy in November 1985 and was taken over by
PEOPLExpress in
March 1986. The PBA name did not die completely, however,
until it
was absorbed
into Bar Harbor Airlines in 1988 which, in itself, was then part of the
Texas Air
Group. From late 1985
until the take-over PBA DC-3s and Bandeirantes were to be seen
flying in Eastern
Express liveries.