Gear check anyone?

Is that "bad" eye the upper of the two? It appears so from the photo, and I don't have my Croll anywhere near to compare...

It looks like a carabiner was repeatedly yanked out of a side-load on the gate.
 
If I had to guess I would suggest corrosion damage through sweat. I assume the person using it was large-ish and had the body-side of the Croll jammed up against his belly. The combination of sweat and humidity can be extraordinarily corrosive and could cause the type delamination and loss of material visible in this image.
 
I wonder if there's a way to afix a small sacrificial zinc anode to a croll like that, to slow its deterioration. I also wonder what the biner looked like.
 
We are thinking that it was a mix of salty air and body sweat over a long period of time. The harness is a Petzl Bod. The Croll was connected to the upper via a short dynama sling. So most likely it had held the moisture and salts giving it a cutting and abrasion force that would be way higher then normal.
 
I can vouch for the effects of a salty air, coastal environment on aluminum. I had the same thing happen to my Petzl Sequoia, where the waist belt wrapped around the D ring. It happened in a spot that was not easy get to. The aluminum corroded, became jagged, and cut through the waist belt webbing.

All I can say is inspect the aluminum with a vengeance...
 
I've seen the same on biners that are barely used. Aluminum and salt are a bad mix though. I was involved in a job that involved pulling cars out of a brackish part of a tidal river, the alloy rims were toasted after about one year and non existent on the older models. The State Police were trying to finish up some insurance fraud cases and this is a popular dump spot. Bottom line, wash your stuff.
 
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