Check out this famous photo from my local area. It was taken on 13th September 1962 and shows the moments before an English Electric Lightning hit the ground on a test flight near Hatfield. Fortunately the pilot survived, unfortunately he came down through a massive greenhouse.
Back when I worked at Duxford there was a story doing the rounds that one of the first ever Lightning flights was when a ground engineer conducting an engine test accidentally lit the afterburner & took off; apparently he had to be coached down by a pilot on the ground...