Some of you may have heard that there was a deadly caving accident in Switzerland some time around last New Years (29th December 2012 or so). As the Swiss are very thorough, they've of course investigated the cause of the accident and finally published their findings:

http://www.speleo.ch/~site/images/stories/documents/unfall_dokumentation_de.pdf (German)
http://www.speleo.ch/~site/images/stories/documents/documentation_accident_fr.pdf (French)

If you speak neither German nor French, the pictures are still very instructive. The accident happened on the traverse shown in Fig 1, which is obviously done using handjammer and footloop. Incidentally, they happened to have a photo of the SRT kit in question which was taken on the way into the cave at the very same spot where the accident happened later on. They've hence reconstructed the SRT kit setup as shown in Fig3: The handjammer was attached to the long cowstails using two snapgates! In the other two pictures, they remind and recommend everyone to use mallions or at least screw gates for the job.

The danger should be quite obvious, and in the UK most people use a separate safety cord with mallion anyway, but just keep it in mind if you are experimenting with alternative setups.

PS: And the casualty was just passing one of the knots on the traverse, when she noticed that she was no longer attached to her handjammer, so she didn't have a second point of attachment at the time.

Olaf said:

The danger should be quite obvious

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Clearly not.

Many thanks for the links/post, Olaf. 

"Her companion heard an exclamation behind him. When he turned all he saw was the rope traverse with her ascender with the footloops hanging."

Chilling.

A very thorough investigation by the Swiss Speleological Society, which must have been helped no end by the photo showing the SRT setup.

Putting any part of your SRT kit together with snap gates is never going to end well

Isn't it still a widespread practice to use snaplinks for cowstails?

Her rig closely matched the ones shown in Marbach & Tourte's bible "Alpine Caving Techniques" (still the most up-to-date manual on SRT) and progression on a traverse with a single cowstail is still considered acceptable practice, including reiteration of this in the FSS's own 2013 Caving Technical Guide.



What she did incorrectly was deploy her hand jammer in a particular way while traversing and/or to be connecting two snaplinks in combination.

According to a cursory check of the book, her rig set up appears at first glance to be AOK for prusiking.

The facts of the matter are she uses a snap gate it opened she's dead you do not need much more info to make your own mind up that its a bad system with faults


We have had a number of issues in the UK with snap gates coming open and I would think that most instructors at CIC level may be passing on info about the possibility of snap gates coming open when on bolts or on other crabs

If she had been using 2 x Cows tails with crabs and a fixed line jammer running to her D link she would be here today to tell us the funny story of how she loaded her jammer upside down

EwanCameron said:

If she had been using 2 x Cows tails with crabs and a fixed line jammer running to her D link she would be here today to tell us the funny story of how she loaded her jammer upside down

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Agreed. I would never dream of using snap gates on anything I might fall onto. (Eg:- cows tails.) Screw gates all round for me. And always 2 points of attachment!

EwanCameron said:

its a bad system with faults

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Perhaps someone should tell the FFS and the authors of ACT.

mmilner said:

EwanCameron said:

If she had been using 2 x Cows tails with crabs and a fixed line jammer running to her D link she would be here today to tell us the funny story of how she loaded her jammer upside down

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Agreed. I would never dream of using snap gates on anything I might fall onto. (Eg:- cows tails.) Screw gates all round for me. And always 2 points of attachment!

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Interesting, I think you'll find many a climber who frequently fall onto snap links and are all still kicking about.

Personally I have no problem with snap links on cows-tails and having seen many a person fumble with a screw gate thats inadvertently locked up at a critical point feel there are pros and cons to screw gates or snap links. Having said that as someone who works professionally leading groups/individuals underground I have one screwgate and one snap link on my cowstails, as I do find myself hanging around on one of them for long periods and find the security of a screwed up krab comforting!

Sadly what this incident does highlight is one of the downsides to what is a very common continental SRT rig (you just have to look at not just Alpine Caving Techniques but also the Petzl website). It's good to share this information and the Swiss have done a good job in doing so, just wish they'd translated it into English! Google translate just doesn't do that fine a job...

GT said:

Interesting, I think you'll find many a climber who frequently fall onto snap links and are all still kicking about.

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I did think about that while posting my comment... maybe the fact that climbers use dynamic rope as opposed to static or semi-static srt rope that cavers use might make a difference?

Plus, if a snap gate comes open, it's strength reduces massively. I know screw gates are gonna take a bit more faffing around, but as you say it's comforting to know u r connected to your rope/belay by something that absolutely will not come undone, etc.

Anyone use a twistlock?

Yer I have twist locks on my stop and I have 1 I use for my cows tail if its clean caving with no mud

if a snap gate comes open, it's strength reduces massively

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Indeed. The same is true of a screwgate.

Routinely screwgates fail to close completely (thus being significantly reduced in strength) since the gate often part-screws and stops the spring-loaded gate engaging, whereas snaplinks automatically self-close (hence the name).

The increased reliability of the higher strength of the auto-closing snaplink therefore would seem to count as a good plus point.

The recent fusion/BotB hiatus also concluded that cowstails should utilise HMS carabiners!

There's been dozens of pages about the relative pros and cons of various cowstail set-ups.

This thread is about a specific failure circumstance, which neither a screwgate nor a snaplink carabiner cowstails would have overcome, since the failure was caused by the use of a snaplink carabiner on the handjammer (which a maillon or screwgate would have avoided).

I have a HMS & Small Screw gate in dirty holes then a lock gate in clean stuff

There's an old (engineering?) adage that goes something along the lines of if it looks right then it probably is right.

In this case the two krabs clipped together looks so ugly, awkward & plainly wrong that it makes you wonder why it didn't leap out as being dodgy to somebody (presumably) experienced enough to do what appears to be a relatively technical route...

It's worth getting two snap gates and have a play see how easy it is to twist them open

They twist open on P bolts if the get pulled the right way

The snaplink failure with bolts has been known about and widely publicised for around a decade or more, IIRC.

Meanwhile, back to the matter in hand.

http://youtu.be/oNqNfH2GePU

I suspect that the deceased caver stood in the footloop, thus making the handjammer and footloop taut while attempting to transfer her shorter 2nd cowstail onto the next part of the traverse line; finding that the move wasn't possible for some reason, she decided to rest her weight back onto the cowstail attached to the handjammer, which instantly unclipped itself as shown in the video above, resulting in an unpredicted and immediate fall.

The fatality is therefore directly attributable to the use of the snaplink as the connector on the jammer/footloop, and is nothing to do with the type of carabiner used on the cowstail, nor does it call into question the practice of clipping suitable carabiners together.

Blakethwaite said:

two krabs clipped together looks so ugly, awkward & plainly wrong that it makes you wonder why it didn't leap out as being dodgy

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Again refer to the diagram from ACT above. Some very eminent cavers would appear to consider it AOK.

Cap'n Chris said:

Again refer to the diagram from ACT above. Some very eminent cavers would appear to consider it AOK.

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Alpine Caving Techniques may be regarded as the SRT Bible by some. On this issue though, personally, I'm a non-believer...

;-)