[MaggieL]

Many light aircraft will fly unassisted for quite some distance, as long as you're not fussy about where they go. When hand-propping, you're supposed to verify tha the throttle is not full-open, and that the tail is tied down and ideally that somone qualified is at the controls holding the brakes down.
There was a similar case with an airplane that had an electric starter (but a dead battery) a few years ago over at Northeast Philadelphia (PNE)....it made it all the way across the airport, through/over a fence and bounced off a passing school bus before fetching up against an apartment building.