Why do steering lines get tangled during flight?

[k.Dahlberg 0]

My wife and I watch a lot of fail videos and often see the steering lines on parafoil/ram-air parachutes getting tangled up mid flight. Pretty scary to watch and for sure more scary if it happens to you.

Neither of us parachute and we are left wondering why that happens.

Is it pilot error? Do environmental changes suddenly create a situation that wasn't there moments ago? Is something else going on?

We thought we'd ask the people who actually do it to get first hand experience-answers. Thank you for your input, stay safe 

[gowlerk 2,260]

You should probably ask this question in a paraglider forum. This is not something that happens to skydiving canopies. Tension knots do happen with our gear during deployments, but not mid-flight. As a sport parachute rigger, I could only speculate on possible reasons. There are similarities in the canopies used in these sports, but there are also great differences.