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Dive brief:
- The Ada County Coroner’s Office has identified the three people killed last week in the collapse of a hangar under construction at an airfield near the Boise airport. They were Craig Durrant, 59; Mario Sontay Tzi, 32 years old; and Mariano Coc Och, 24 years old.
- Durrant was a co-founder of Meridian, Idaho-based Big D Builders and the brother of Dennis Durrant, the company’s owner, according to the Idaho Statesman. Big D Builders was construction of the new aircraft hanger for Jackson Jet Center. In addition to the dead, nine others were injured. Their identities have not been disclosed.
- “Words cannot describe our pain and sadness since Wednesday evening,” read a statement Big D Builders shared with the Idaho Statesman. “Behind our company name is a small family business, grown in Idaho, and we grieve deeply for our community.”
Diving knowledge:
Last year, construction began on the single-story hangar; A permit was issued for the foundation in October, according to the Idaho Statesman, which enlisted the views of several engineering experts to explore possible causes of the collapse. Some speculated strong winds may have contributed.
Winds gusted to 17 mph on the day of the collapse, and the Statesman said there was a 20 mph gust about 10 minutes before emergency services were called to the scene. OSHA recommends evaluating whether lifting operations should be suspended when winds reach this 20 mph threshold.
Robert Hamilton, an associate professor of civil engineering at Boise State University, noted that most buildings at the same stage of completion as the Boise hangar are temporarily supported before crews add the siding and roof to prevent let the building move.
“I was really surprised it went down,” Hamilton told the Idaho Statesman.
Local company Inland Crane had four cranes on the job site the day of the collapse, the Statesman reported. The hydraulic arm of one of them was caught in the collapse and Inland Crane removed the other cranes from the site.
Inland Crane told the Statesman it does not believe its operators or machinery are to blame for the collapse.
Investigators have not yet announced a specific cause. The answer may lie in the 1940 collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington state, where a group of engineers later determined that a “random act of turbulent wind” had caused the failure, reported the statesman
Yang Lu, an associate professor of civil engineering at Boise State and an expert in forensic analysis of failed structures, told the Statesman that the gust “could have been a trigger,” but it could take months to close a research
