Any accident reports from an autolocker opening?

Sorry if this is the wrong forum, I thought there might be more specific knowledge here than in the gear forum. 

Wondering if anyone knows of any accidents or accident reports caused by an autolocking carabiner unlocking and opening while unattended.

Cheers

Not a super useful one, but I remembered it and it's an interesting failure:

Close call with an LRS anchor. I understand the systems are completely different, but I think this failure mode could show up in normal partnered climbing as well. Belay carabineers are best suited for being belay carabineers it seems to me. 

No accident occurred, but once I got to the bottom of a rappel and found my autolocker on my third hand was forced open. Luckily it was still oriented in a working load friendly fashion. 

It just happened to get enough torque in one direction to turn and open. I use a screw gate one now, but theoretically it could still have happened?

Also just a close all, but I had one partially open [meaning it came unlocked but the gate only opened a little] on an extended rappel under a roof. It was a very long time ago so I don't remember too much other than it was one of those ones that you have to rotate. I think it snapped back shut once it wasn't in contact with the rock anymore?

This isn't unheard of in the tree-care world, where 3-stage autolockers are the norm, and they still get defeated when being pulled against tree trunks in weird ways. DMM specifically makes their "Durolock" which is a 4-action auto-locker, to combat this.

I'm not personally aware of any accidents specifically from a 3-stage autolocker opening, but my guess is there's enough precedent for DMM to have made that...

DMM Durolock

I was doing a rappel through a V-groove and the autolocker on my extended ATC rubbed against the rock and opened but kept hold of the device.  I now use a Magnatron for this.

I've been on a hanging rap station and watched a rope pull open a weight bearing Petzl smd twist lock. I've also seen my self-belay cluster rope open my steel twist lock biner while aid rope soloing;: I've since switched to a steel triaction for that application. Neither resulted in accident (and neither was technically "unattended") but both were pretty freaky. 

Thanks all. By "unattended" I am just trying to mean without someone purposefully opening it. Rope movement, trees, rock, etc. are exactly what I am wondering about. 

Josh Rappoport wrote:

I was doing a rappel through a V-groove and the autolocker on my extended ATC rubbed against the rock and opened but kept hold of the device.  I now use a Magnatron for this.

This brings to mind another question... (I'm a caver, so our gear is different, but much of the hardware is shared, so here we go...)

I use a DMM Ceros - captive-eye "belay" style carabiner - to attach my rappel rack to my harness D-ring. It's oriented so that the captive-eye runs through my rack, and is pointing "up" and the main gate is clipped to my D-ring. BUT it's oriented so that the gate is facing my body, which is supposed to "protect" it from hitting the rock, and opening I guess. (See below)

I bring this up to ask - Could you re-orient your carabiner, to keep the gate facing you, and it's spine against the rock? I will give you the benefit of the doubt, as you mentioned it was an extended rappel, so my guess is the sling/extension would still allow it to rotate.

(Another reason for us to bully Grivel into making more twin-gates...)

A little unusual in the modern climbing world, but i know of at least one figure 8 device prying a triple lock gate open.

dave custer wrote:

A little unusual in the modern climbing world, but i know of at least one figure 8 device prying a triple lock gate open.

As in the F8 twisted/flipped upside down, and broke the gate open? Or some.other means of failure?