Thankyou eastern wiseguy, it was most amusing to read about the trajectories of the free tickets, but that didn't help with the original question ;-) The BBC radio programme that i'd listened to said that the pig had indeed reached 20,000 ft, but had ended up in a farmer's field in Kent and was 'scaring his herd of dairy cows who refused to come in for milking'. There was also mention of an RAF QRA aircraft (lightning?) being sent up to shoot it down, but this seems a bit far fetched. There must've been some funny R/T between ATC and aircraft during the whole escape :-)