Harness broke during fall

Nkane 1 wrote:

What Mammut harness was that? Do you have pictures? Details?

Maybe it's naïve, but one of the things that makes such a ridiculous sport as climbing plausible is that the equipment works: the flimsy-looking harnesses hold our weight. In fact, they should be designed so that your pelvis shatters before the harness breaks. That's the point of rating them to 15kn or whatever the standard is.

 In my opinion, harnesses should not just break. Ever. Durability should be measured by how much abuse it takes to visibly wear out the harness. And a harness that's not visibly worn should never fail under normal climbing scenarios (which a 40-ft whipper absolutely is). If a harness has a failure mode where it can break without visible damage or abrasion, that's a potentially fatal design defect. 

 If I owned a BD Vision or the Mammut you're referring to, I would put it in the trash right now.

If I were BD or Mammut (or their legal team), I would issue a recall this morning.

Glad you both are ok; that's terrifying.

It was a Mammut Sender harness. I'd had an old Ophir Slide for years and was pretty happy with it. Decided to get another one from Mammut when it was time to replace and then that happened. Ill try and find a picture of it

Luke Lalor wrote:

Could you post more pictures of the rip? It was my (potentially wrong) understanding that harnesses have webbing in them and are effective just padding around that. I can’t see the load bearing portion of the harnesses (intact or town) and would be quite curious to see it.

scary stuff

The wispy white stuff is the load bearing part (it's a mesh of Vectran). That harness has no webbing and no padding.

Photos can be deceiving, but that that harness looks a bit faded and the gear loops yellowed. Maybe UV exposure from climbing in the sun for 250 days?

Nkane 1 wrote:

There's a statement that the BD Vision harness also has a 10-year lifespan from the manufacture date: blackdiamond-cms.zaneray.co…

Not exactly. They state that the maximum lifespan is 10 years, even if unused and properly stored. They don't say anything about expected lifespan with regular usage. Even their two-year warranty doesn't cover damage due to normal wear and tear.

Luke Lalor wrote:

Could you post more pictures of the rip? It was my (potentially wrong) understanding that harnesses have webbing in them and are effective just padding around that. I can’t see the load bearing portion of the harnesses (intact or town) and would be quite curious to see it.

scary stuff

The load bearing part is the whispy white threads of Vectran, a Kevlar-like polymer. Should be plenty strong enough, think about the amount of material in an 6mm dyneema sling that still has a 22kN breaking load. 

Edit: Austin got there first.

Can't tell from the picture what has happened but it's deeply worrying. Ropes can be cut, bolts can corrode, carabiners can break if loaded awkwardly, but harnesses do not fail!

My girlfriend broke her harness years back.  Had to let her go.

seriously though, this is wild. Full split in back.
5 years is like “brand new” to me. But that does look pretty worn in pic. Will be interesting to see what factory analysis says.

Outta curiosity, how shot is your rope?   (And your kidneys after this?)

Martin le Roux wrote:

Not exactly. They state that the maximum lifespan is 10 years, even if unused and properly stored. They don't say anything about expected lifetime with regular usage. Even their two-year warranty doesn't cover damage due to normal wear and tear.

Correct. I was responding to the statement that the lifespan for UL C4s was five years.

But the OP said that there wasn't visible damage to the area that failed. 

My point is that if these harnesses suddenly explode with no warning, or even with subtle warning signs, it's a terrible design. Or a manufacturing defect.

Garrett Hopkins wrote:

It was the lower hard point. not the "keeper". It was a structural part of the harness. Really wild. Clearly Mammut isn't designing things for my American 200 pound lard ass

That’s f*ing scary

Climb On wrote:

That’s f*ing scary

That’s the bit I meant; not the keeper. 

Austin Donisan wrote:

The wispy white stuff is the load bearing part (it's a mesh of Vectran). That harness has no webbing and no padding.

Photos can be deceiving, but that that harness looks a bit faded and the gear loops yellowed. Maybe UV exposure from climbing in the sun for 250 days?

Thanks Austin. That is terrifying. I wonder if these meshes can get loaded in shear such that only a portion gets loaded at a time. Like ripping a phonebook after slightly bending it. You would think that would be a metric they QA, so perhaps less likely. But this is black diamond after all...

Garrett Hopkins wrote:

I had a lower tie-in loop break during a fall on a mammut harness after maybe only  60 days of climbing on it. Freaky 

I know someone who also had this happen with a fairly new mammut harness, mammut makes great stuff but Ive avoided their harnesses for that reason.

Really want to see more pics. Glad you're OK. I see BD is still making trash...

David Menken wrote:

My guess is the breaking of the waist belt already absorbed most of the force kind of like a screamer and the gear loop did maybe the remaining 1kn or so. I doubt it’s by design.

I definitely agree the stitching failing absorbed most of the force, it’s just really interesting that a lightweight harness would have such strong gear loops considering I’ve had a misty fail with less then a single rack on a single gear loop, and watched a partners bd sport harness gear loop fail after tying a clove to a draw while cleaning a longer route. He was still tied in when he dropped the clove he just tied onto his harness so he didn’t completely drop his rope but that was almost a massive pain in the ass! I guess what I’m saying is it’s funny this harness happens to have such bomber gear loops in just the right spot. 

Austin Donisan wrote:

The wispy white stuff is the load bearing part (it's a mesh of Vectran). That harness has no webbing and no padding.
Photos can be deceiving, but that that harness looks a bit faded and the gear loops yellowed. Maybe UV exposure from climbing in the sun for 250 days?

Perhaps this is a faulty assumption, but shouldn't the outer covering protect the Vectran from UV degradation?

Perhaps I'm being irrational, but this thread has convinced me to never use an ultralight harness.

Glad you are ok! That is scary stuff, for sure!

Can you take more pics, fold it back the way it was supposed to be?
Was there anything unusual in this fall? Like anything catching on/hooking on the harness?

To me the harness looks quite faded and worn, but maybe it's the lighting. 

You'd definitely want to contact BD ASAP, and post an update when they respond.

Following. That had to have been terrifying...

Luke Lalor wrote:

Could you post more pictures of the rip? It was my (potentially wrong) understanding that harnesses have webbing in them and are effective just padding around that. I can’t see the load bearing portion of the harnesses (intact or town) and would be quite curious to see it.

scary stuff

I thought as Luke wrote above about a harness being padding added over a strong webbing structure. Is that white horse tail thing all that is left of the load bearing waist belt/webbing? And as someone else has noted… that harness looks to be an ultra light weight design and very, very worn—not a good combination. I’ll be interested to hear what the verdict is once the manufacturer has a close look. 

A weird thing is that the retail vision has a white back panel but this one has a black back panel. I found a review of a harness with the black back panel on this website

https://www.bergzeit.de/magazin/black-diamond-vision-klettergurt-im-test/

I wonder if the pre-releases (review copies) were different?

Mark Pilate wrote: how shot is your rope?   (And your kidneys after this?)

Never mind the rope/kidneys, how's your underwear? I would've soiled myself if I realized that that had happened.

Have you reached out to BD yet? Any response?

Nkane 1 wrote:

 If I owned a BD Vision or the Mammut you're referring to, I would put it in the trash right now.

If I were BD or Mammut (or their legal team), I would issue a recall this morning.

Glad you both are ok; that's terrifying.

WOW calm down. Let's get all the facts, understand the story, and look at some data first before pulling out pitch forks.