Have read your page with interest, I recount my experience as a passenger on Hastings TG502 whilst on the ground at Ottawa, Canada in the winter of 1966/7.
At the time, I was a Senior Technician in the RAF, based at Boscombe Down. We were support crew to a Vulcan (XH 606) doing cold weather trials at CEPE Cold Lake, in Northern Alberta. The general procedure was for the Vulcan to fly ahead and the ground crew to follow in a Hastings, which was either TG500 or TG502, which were both used as support aircraft at Boscombe Down at the time.
This aircraft had made the trip to Cold lake, many times without incident, and an overnight stay at Ottawa was part of their usual itinerary, were the aircraft was left outside for the night. After boarding the aircraft for take off from Ottawa, the usual crew checks were being carried, out before start up, when the captain emerged and asked for the rear door to be opened and the boarding ladder lowered. After a few minutes, he called for everyone to disembark, which we all did. It was quite cold, about minus 20, but not unusually so for the time of year. Since all passengers were either engineers or technicians we gathered around to be shown the problem. The captain explained that he had been unable to move the elevators when checking the controls from the ****pit, which was a mandatory pre-flight check, hence is sudden disembarkation to find the reason. We all observed that the normal gap between the elevator and its surrounding tailplane was none-existent, and therefore the elevator and tailplane were seized together. A Special Incident Report (SIR) was raised and the aircraft towed in to the heated hanger.
Within 10 minutes, the previously, none-existent gap had opened to over 8mm, and the elevators were free. Since several airframe men on board had experience of rectification modifications to the Elevator Horns which had caused at least one previous crash of a Hastings, they were none too happy to leave things as they were! The last rib of the tailplane was therefore moved about 10mm away from the elevator, and the now spare metal trimmed flush, leaving a gap that could easily accommodate a hand thickness. Thoughts were voiced about this happening at 7000 feet, which was our normal cruising altitude and the resulting inability to control our altitude by normal means! We carried on to Cold Lake, via Winnipeg, without incident and the same aircraft made the same trip many times later. Why it happened this one time, no one seems to know. It was concluded that freak weather conditions had caused it, but I always thought that the air at 7000 feet was always colder than at sea level, were Ottawa, on the St Lawrence Seaway is located!.
Hope you found this interesting. Has anyone heard of a similar occurence?

Peter Kay