https://www.abc15.com/news/state/mcso-man-trapped-in-western-arizona-mine-shaft-rescue-underway

Looks like a success that ended well - no life threatening injuries. What I noticed was the statement that a carabiner "broke" causing a fall of 40 to 50 feet.

Carabiners don't break; at least biners rated for climbing and used in anything like normal usage. I wonder if an ersatz biner not rated for climbing was employed; some are the same size as real biners and superficially look the same.

Mine rescues are extremely complex, especially when dealing with vertical shafts. They are much more unstable than cave passages.

This is an amazingly good outcome.

A quick look at REI.com shows that both carabiners and climbing ropes are rated to about 7 to 8 kilonewtons (1573 to 1798 lbs) of strength. However, if one of the ‘biners was abused and the gate wasn’t quite right, could that have contributed to a failure? A carabiner failure in that case would be the fault of the climber for not checking his gear.

But then I’m not a climber, my carabiners are for attaching things, not climbing. For my uses a carabiner is a simple over-built convenience.

Carabiners are generally quite sturdy mechanisms. I have a few that are more than sixty years old that still work quite well, although I do not place them in critical locations. More modern biners are lighter for equivalent strengths and can withstand moderate abuse (short of pounding them with a sledge hammer, for instance). Improperly rigged, it is possible for the gate to be forced open which could lead to failure of whatever system the biner was employed, but the biner itself would not be "broken."

More details would be useful. I suspect the victim in this case did not have a strong technical climbing background - venturing alone into a mine shaft is a very bad idea - something never recommended.

Emphasis added!

Too little information in the article.

If he used a figure of 8 with a carabiner; they have been known to be able to brake the screwlock and twist out.

Improper gear or attached it incorrectly can also be an issue

Tjin
Any source for the figure 8 issue, thanks Dave

https://www.theuiaa.org/documents/safety/Karabiner_Breakings_when_using_a_Figure-of-eight.pdf

Wow! Sounds like he's lucky to be alive. Despite making some big mistakes the did one smart thing that saved his life- he told a trusted person where he was going and when he would be back. If he hadn't an archeologist probably would have found his bones in another hundred years or so.

Too bad that precise details are not available. A TV story stated that he "lost control" midway in his rappel,which suggests something other than a free fall from fifty feet up, an event which is usually fatal (as in the cited article on figure eight/ carabiner breakage).

The rigging for the extraction intrigued me - much more elaborate and substantial than the set up we rigged for a similar mine shaft rescue many moons ago (1979s).