I flew with Ian on Tristars and the story is a bit different, as is the official report.
They were outbound from LHR to Italy, and attempting an ADF approach in stormy weather with thunderstorms, when all of a sudden the thing came to a grinding halt with a lot of snow around!! They had slid onto the top of a mountain some distance from the expected arrival airfield!! Lucky lad, and then he was in the other one!! Time to give up.
I also saw one land on Salisbury Plain, and the nosewheel doors departed the airframe on touchdown!! Not a rough field airplane by any means.
The next experience with one was to load a Bristol Hercules powerplant on its stand and take it to the Chief Of the Air Staffs Valletta that had let us down just before Easter in Germany. The big problem was that with all the heavy and fancy roller flooring the darned thing would not go in, and maintain a CofG that was acceptable to the beast. It meant dismantling a lot of the cowlings and take the wheels off of the stand before it would just fit under the spar.
Hence known as the best crew transport in the RAF as that was all it would carry, plus their shopping of course!!
Another British masterpiece!!!!
Speedbird 48.