Scott: did you check whether Sir Alan had half inched your gear? But seriously, was your plane locked up? I'm amazed to see people leave planes unlocked and unattended - forget about the camera, but a couple of decent headsets (Lightspeed Zulus, Bose etc) would also put a serious dent in your wallet replacing.
I know, in the old days we could leave our houses unlocked but that was when nobody had anything worth stealing......
Unfortunately, the door wasn't lockable and it was a hired a/c. It was a PA28, so I thought that rather than carrying a rather chunky camera bag round with me, i'd put it in the rear footwell out of sight... We even sat in the restaurant looking out at the a/c as it was parked only 75 - 100m away!
Shortly before this incident, a friend of mine got his Bose headset nicked from Shoreham, but I didn't find out until I was telling him about my plight.
Needless to stay, anything expensive stays with me and my Bose headset is put back in my headset case and hidden away!