I only managed 10 years of flying the Argosy for Mrs Windsor (from 1962 until 1971) so I still have a great deal still to learn.
I have no intention of commenting upon the ditching of XP413, the disaster at Got Al Afrag with XR133 or the shifting of garden soil from Nairobi to Aden for JEJ's garden for all three subjects have been done to death on pprune.
However, I am intrigued by Zetec's accusation of "a Yank captain" ripping up the runway at Matsapa.
Let us start with the runway at Matsapa; it looked beautiful from the ground and from the air but the fact was that it consisted of about 1/8" of tarmac sprayed upon murram (or something similar). Frank, who ran the Tower and was also the CFI of the Aero Club used to beg us to go easy on the brakes otherwise the surface would peel-up into a lot of black bananas. Most of the time this worked well but I have to say that, given the option of going off the end and crashing into the valley or saving Frank's beautiful (but rather inadequate surface) I would not for one second have considered keeping the local peace.
Which takes me on to Zetec's rather unfortunate "Yank captain" statement; during my ten years on the Argosy I served on 105, 114 and 267 (twice). I have never heard of exchange aircrew serving on 105 in Aden. On 267 Squadron (until the Viet Nam war started) we usually had an exchange crew from the RAAF consisting of a a captain, a co-pilot and a navigator. (The first thing we used to do was separate them)!
114 Squadron usually had a USAF exchange captain but I doubt they went to Matsapa very often (if ever at all).
Now, 47 (Beverley) Squadron at Abingdon also used to have a USAF exchange captain (I remember meeting Bonzo von H.). I also remember a Beverley arriving at Matsapa and undershooting. He landed several feet below runway level and hit the escarpment. Astonishingly, the Beverley undercarriage stayed in one piece, bounced off the cliff face and ended up on Frank's precious runway. I would imagine that some damage was caused!
So, could it be that Zetec's memory has mixed up a Beverley event with an Argosy event?