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Climbing Information:
Accident and Incident Analysis:
Re: [lena_chita] Broken carabiner in a lead fall.:
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distantThunder
Jul 23, 2013, 2:20 AM
Views: 8166
Registered: Jul 4, 2012
Posts: 43
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yo.
first - very glad that you are unhurt and able to tell your story here.
next - I'm an "old fart". I did a LOT of climbing many years ago. Nowadays I just climb easier routes and totally for fun. I'm also an engineer by profession ... analysis of stress & strain, fractures, and material behavior is what I do for a living. but I'm not here to give you, or Petzl, a hard time.
looking quickly at how you matched up the failure - looks like you are on the right track.
a). How did the gate on the biner pop open? Pretty clearly - that's not a good thing. I guess somehow the rope must have snagged it open. That's very uncommon. but if it does happen and the biner flips (like you showed), then definitely the strength is much lower than normal ratings.
b) Besides your story, there's another incident in a recent Rock and Ice where two biners failed. The failure location is very similar to yours. But those climbers had used an "extended draw" technique where the webbing was looped multiple times on the biner. You didn't do that.
c) In the old days - I honestly cannot think of any time that I heard of a biner breaking in the way that you showed. it just flat out NEVER happened. really. in those days the biners tended to be more rounded and a little narrower than today. and I'm guessing the metal alloy was more ductile as well. who knows - maybe the springs that held the gates were also stiffer. but for whatever reason we just never saw incidents like the one you experienced. this tells me that something needs to be investigated and changed - the modern carabiners are moving towards designs that make them more vulnerable to failure. it is possible that because sport climbing was very young (or nonexistent) when I was a young guy that the biners were loaded differently ... maybe. but we still saw no biner failures like that during lead falls.
two things were almost complete certainties in the good old days - your biners would never break and neither would your 11 mm rope (so long as it didn't go over a sharp edge). The times they are a changin' - I guess. :-)
talk to me if you want.
and let us know what Petzl says.
good luck,
dT
[distantThunder]
(This post was edited by distantThunder on Jul 23, 2013, 2:37 AM)
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