The text of this article was updated on 2/2/24 with new information.
The Ada County Coroner’s Office identified the three workers who died in the Jan. 31 collapse of a prefab steel hangar under construction at the Boise Airfield as Craig Durrant, 59, of Boise, and Mario Sontay Tzi, 32. Nampa and Mariano Coc Och, 24, of Nampa. The incident is under investigation.
All three men died from blunt force trauma injuries. Nine other workers were injured during the collapse, which also involved a failed crane that was lifting the rigid steel frame. Five of the injured were hospitalized in critical condition, the Boise Fire Department said in a statement. Officials have not shared further details about the injuries.
Aaron Hummel, chief of operations for the Boise Fire Department, told reporters during a news conference that workers were tying down the components of the sinkhole 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.
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.
