Rust’s 172, flying low to evade Russian air defence radars, was initially mistaken for a Soviet training plane – and when jet fighters were able to identify it as a Western plane, they found it too difficult to match the Cessna’s slow speed. Rust was able to fly on and make his historic landing in front of surprised onlookers. His French-built 172 was later sold to Japan, though has been returned to Germany, where it is now displayed in the Deutches Technikmuseum in Berlin.

The 172 is still rolling off Textron Aviation’s production lines in Wichita, Kansas, which means that you don’t have to buy a secondhand model should you want one of your own. So if you live in the UK or Europe, you have two options – partially disassemble the aircraft and pack it into shipping crates, or get it flown over the vast expanse of the North Atlantic.

That’s where pilots like Sam Rutherford come in.

Rutherford works for Prepare2go, a company which, among other things, ferries aircraft from factory to customer. He regularly flies across the North Atlantic – including in a 172. Hiring a pilot to make the journey can be about the same cost as getting it shipped, he says. “And with that, you’re going to have to take the wings off, and then put them back on at the other side – and that’s a lot more complicated because you need to get that signed off by an engineer.

“I must have done the crossing about 12 times, including in a helicopter and a microlight. The 172, compared to flying in either of those, is like travelling on British Airways!”

Even with extra fuel on board, the 172 cannot do the entire journey – flying from Newfoundland on Canada’s east coast to the west of Ireland is at least 1,900 miles (3,100km). So the 172 will be taken on a more circuitous route that will see it flying across Canada’s barren north, across Baffin Bay to Greenland, and from there to Iceland and then down to the British Isles.