Cable failure falls to the ground and is a non issue. I've had a winch cable fail with sever tension and it's a no biggie. That jacket won't do anything on the cable. If anything you want it as close to the mounting point as possible to help slow or cushion a flying failure at the mounting point. Even then I dunno if it will help.
The projectiles that kill are poor mounting points and their failure there.
good points wes, When I went to "recovery school" whatever that was.. They preached the recovery points, not the winch line. It has to do with where the break is in relation to the force point, and the mass at the focal point of the break.
anchor points, clevises and winch hooks are the danger points. I have seen several recoveries like the one in uncle ben's pic, and while I am sure it does something, the way we were taught was to use a blanket (you know, the old one you keep in the truck for emergency snuggling with your co-driver or dog when stranded) laid out full length over the line, so that when the line snaps, it will lower the fulcrum of the snap, in effect shortening the radius of the lever, resulting in less transfer of energy, and or less distance for the projectile.
Not a common failure, but statistically more apt to happen with frayed cable OR rope.
There are a lot of myths out there in regards to this subject, and I am far from a scholar on it, but the times I was schooled in it have stuck in my head.
Once, in air assault training, we were rigging a cucv blazer for deployment with a blackhawk. Cocky kid, (unbelievably not me) decided to not pay heed to the instructor, and almost lost his hand due to a bad lift point connection.
I definitely took the subject seriously since then, especially since I realized that we were lucky that it was just his hand, as had the bird fully lifted, it would have likely killed or injured one of us on the ground, but his screams had the instructor lower the bird.
stepping off soapbox now...