Fair call
Difficult at night as the first thing after check canopy is steer away but if you can’t see everyone it’s down to luck.
You can also collapse your canopy by drifting directly over another parachute then it’s a race to the ground. I never witnessed this but was warned of the potential hazard
From what I recall from 'chit-chat' with some of the 20 odd lads 'with ankles' who came to us in casualty that night the gist of what happened was:
One guy who had 'Roman Candled' hit the top of the others canopy quite hard collapsing it too, then slid down & got tangled in his lines above him. Too dark & too low to work out what to do so gravity won. Sad event all round.
All I know for sure is that it was the busiest night in casualty I had in 12 years at military hospitals. No one had written SOP's to cover that, we had to make it up as we went along. Even the Major Accident Plan didn't cover that number coming to us, it was written around us sending teams out to Aid the Civil Power. No use at all. As a humble RAMC Cpl I did get at least a CO's Commendation from an RAF Air Cdre, still got it somewhere, in the loft probably.
