BOISE, ID – Workers had expressed concerns about bending or bowed beams and structural issues before a steel airport hangar under construction in Idaho collapsed in January, killing three people and injuring nine others, a newspaper reported.
Inland Crane of Boise provided equipment and operators for the project, and that company’s supervisor told police he “has worked a crane on several of these types of sites, and the ‘bowing’ of the beam did not look right to him.” The Durrant brothers were in the center of the site when they heard loud popping noises, according to the police reports. They ran for the perimeter but Dennis Durrant told police the building “came down within seconds,” killing his brother. Also killed in the collapse were two construction workers, Mario Sontay Tzi , 32, and Mariano “Alex” Coc Och, 24.
The hangar’s overhead beams were not straight, and there were not enough cross-sections to support the overhead beams, another crane operator told officers. However, David Stark, Big D Builders superintendent general contractor, maintained that there weren’t any problems at the site, and that he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, the Statesman reported.