Sorry to have missed the programme and also very sad to hear of the Russian pilot's Alexandre's death, which I was unaware of until this thread.
I too was at Fairford on the day of his mid-air between the 2 Mig 29s. We were there to do a static display with a Puma. As the blazing wreckage of one Mig fell into the aircraft park and the other looked like it was going towards the local village we thought it was another Ramstein in the making! I thought it best to make ourselves available so I responded by speaking to ATC and getting airborne in the Puma from the static display park. It was only after we landed on the far side of the airfield as directed that we realised we had beaten the on-site dedicated SAR Wessex aircraft by a good few minutes. Which embarrassed it's crew because we'd been parked with tip socks on, tail rotor locks in and the engine cowlings open at the time of the incident!
An amusing thing (well we laughed!) happened Alexandre on his return to the hotel.
He shared the lift with a female ATCO who, not knowing who he was, asked him "Had a good day then?"
Alexandre answered, in his heavy Russian accent after drawing deeply on his roll-up cigarette: "Not exactly...."
ShyT