The two Mikoyan MiG-29 Fulcrums split seconds after they collided. In the photograph the lower aircraft is about to break into two at the point where the other MiG’s port wing has sliced through the area behind the cockpit and just forward of the engine intake. Pilots Sergei Tresvyatsky and Aleksandr Beschastnov, both from the Russian Central Aero- and Hydrodynamic Institute, ejected safely, though their aircraft were totally destroyed.

The photograph at bottom shows one of the pilots shortly after he ejected, his parachute about to deploy as the MiG fireballs beneath him.