The Caribou could have been Porgera
Yes -that's the one. It happened on 3 June 1965. The crew had been operating at over 10,000 ft for some time in the area and the Court of Inquiry cited the effect of possible anoxia as one reason why they failed to twig they were landing at the wrong destination. In the event they saw fuel drums on the strip and went around again at low altitude but were slow to retract the flaps from full flap. The resulting speed bleed due to drag caused the aircraft to hit the strip. Both pilots were badly injured. Eventually a C208 (?) or similar was used to transport the pilots to Mt Hagen.
At the time we had just departed Momote for Brisbane in a VIP Convair 440 Metropolitan and heard about the prang on HF. The then Minister for the Territories (Barnes) was aboard. We volunteered to divert to Hagen to pick up the Caribou pilots thinking they would probably in any case be medivaced to Australia and we may as well do the job. The crew of the Convair was myself as captain, Flying Officer Eric Lundbeg as copilot, F/L Colin Braithwaite Navigator, F/L Taylor navigator, Sgt Downie and Sgt Hoy engineers.
The Caribou crew were F/L Bevan captain and Flying Officer Nicholson copilot. We landed at the new Mt Hagen airstrip called Corn Farm, 2.5 hours after leaving Momote. (according to my log book). The Caribou pilots were on stretchers when lifted into the the Convair. Instead of continuing to Brisbane as we had planned, we were directed to take them to Lae where they were put in hospital. We then continued our journey to Port Moresby, Brisbane and Canberra.
The take off from Mt Hagen was scary as we were obviously far too heavy for the runway length (5400ft) if I recall, and the density altitude. As explained earlier the Convair performance charts were quite limited in information. In any case from the brief information we were given on HF at the time we departed from Momote, we thought that it was vital to get prompt medical attention to the injured Caribou pilots.