Three workers were killed and nine injured when a crane and prefab steel hangar collapsed during construction at the Boise, Idaho, airfield on January 31. The cause is under investigation.
Aaron Hummel, chief of operations for the Boise Fire Department, told reporters during a news conference that a rigid steel frame had been erected and workers were tying together components. A crane was lifting steel members when the collapse occurred around 5 p.m.
“The main structural members came down,” Hummel said. “It was pretty catastrophic.”
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has opened an investigation into the incident and its investigators visited the site, a spokesman says. No further information was available yet.
Contractor Big D Builders Inc., Meridian, Idaho, is building the 39,000-square-foot hangar, which is 45.5 feet high, for Jackson Jet Center, a private aircraft rental and maintenance company, according to city permits. Available records do not include any structural engineers.
Five of the injured were hospitalized in critical condition, Firefighters. officials said in a statement. Officials have not shared further details about the fatalities and injuries.
Information on whether the workers were from Big D or a subcontractor was not immediately available. There were no union ironworkers on the job, according to Ironworkers Local 732 in Idaho.
Big D did not immediately respond to inquiries. According to the contractor’s website, it has 22 full-time employees, specializes in steel construction and has previously worked on at least one other hangar at the Boise airport. Big D Builders is not affiliated with Big-D Construction Corp., Salt Lake City.
Last year, OSHA fined Big D $21,875 for repeated fall protection citations, records show. Officials said workers installing metal roofing for the roof of a commercial building about 25 feet tall were not using fall protection. OSHA had also issued a smaller penalty to Big D in 2022 after it found workers exposed to a 33-foot fall hazard while erecting steel on another project.
