Well, this is an extraordinary coincidence, because sitting alongside my keyboard is a file of notes about this very incident. It happened on 26 April 1955. The 'pilot' was one Nick Agnani, a Parsee Indian of British citizenship serving in the RAF as a groundcrewman, his colour-blindness having failed him as potential aircrew — something that nagged at him, according to memories of colleagues. He was based at RAF Thorney Island and is said to have taken two flying lessons at nearby Portsmouth Aero Club, whose CFI, Sqn Ldr Harry 'Mitch' Mitchell advised him not to waste any more of his money as he lacked aptitude. Agani reportedly spent much of his off-duty time alone in his billet, reading aircraft technical and navigation manuals. On the evening in question he got aboard a 2 ANS Varsity, WF426, started it, made unsteady progress to the runway, and took off, passing very low over the sea wall where some of his fellow airman were cockling. Somehow he crossed the Channel, but crashed into a farmhouse at Onnaing, near Valenciennes in northern France, killing himself and three people in the house. I've seen an eyewitness report that prior to stealing the Varsity, Agnani had been caught in the off-limits hangar at Thorney which housed a detachment from the Aerial Torpedo Development Unit at Gosport, said then to have been operating three Canberras. Some say he was homesick and planned to fly back to his family, others that he simply wanted to prove that he could be a pilot. Either way, it ended tragically.