OSHA Report Blames Contractor for Deadly Boise Hangar Collapse

After a six-month investigation, federal officials said the company building a hangar at Boise Airport engaged in a “scandalous disregard for safety standards” before the hangar collapsed, killing three men.

Inspectors from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration found that Big D Builders, the Meridian-based contractor, “disregarded standard safety procedures and visible warning signs during construction,” the U.S. Department of Labor, which oversees OSHA, said in a news release Monday.

“The tragic loss and pain suffered by so many is compounded by the fact that Big D Builders could have prevented all of this,” David Kearns, director of OSHA’s Boise area, said in the release. “We cannot put a value on the loss of life, but we will use all of our resources to hold employers accountable when they willfully disregard safety regulations and expose workers to serious and fatal injuries.”

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The hangar collapsed on Jan. 31 as crews were building a 43-foot-tall, 39,000-square-foot steel hangar for the Jackson Jet Center. Three people were killed: Big D Builders co-founder Craig Durrant and two construction workers, Mario Sontay Tzi and Mariano “Alex” Coc Och. Eight more workers were injured in the incident, OSHA said.

From day one of the hangar’s construction, there were warning signs about the structure’s lack of stability that the contractor should not have ignored or overlooked, Kearns said in a telephone interview with the Idaho Statesman.

“As soon as they got the first bay, there were problems,” he said. “They seemed to have some waves, there was at least one cable that snapped on the first day, and over the next few days, as they continued to get it up, the bends increased and it got worse. It got more pronounced and more cables snapped.”

As a result, OSHA recommended fines totaling nearly $200,000 for Big D for four violations — one willful and three serious — of federal safety regulations. In addition, the regulatory agency also recommended that Inland Crane, the Boise contractor used by Big D, pay more than $10,000 in fines for a serious violation involving “failure to ensure stability during hangar erection.”

The families of the two workers have filed a lawsuit naming Big D, Inland and others.

“Given the ongoing litigation, we have no comment on the report or its findings,” Big D Builders said in an email statement to the Statesman.

Inland Crane reiterated its condolences to the victims of the incident in an email to the Statesman. The crane company said OSHA’s findings are consistent with its own “initial impression” that neither the company nor its equipment “contributed to the tragic collapse of the hangar,” though the assertion is at odds with OSHA’s report and recommended penalties.

“They were there, they were involved, they were very familiar with the bending and the swaying, the structural issues,” Kearns said. “They raised concerns, but they didn’t take steps to move workers out of harm’s way. Ultimately, they were very fortunate that they didn’t injure or lose any of their own workers.”

Big D Builders began construction on the hangar at 4049 W. Wright St. without “adequate bracing or tensioned guy wires” and “ignored numerous signs that the structure was unstable as workers continued to add 150-foot bays during construction,” according to OSHA. The ignored warning signs included “visibly bent, buckled and wavy structural I-beams, unbalanced columns and several broken wire ropes.”

“OSHA found that the spans were visibly out of alignment and that the contractor had left many key connecting bolts loose and, instead of installing additional bracing or temporary guy lines in accordance with steel construction standards, used ties to straighten the additional spans,” the release said.

Additional findings in the federal workplace safety investigation indicated that Big D Builders risked toppling cranes and other construction equipment when workers operated them in mud and standing water. Big D also failed to properly train workers in steel span construction, the report said.

“Big D Builders’ blatant disregard for federal safety regulations cost three workers their lives and left at least eight others with painful injuries,” Kearns said in the release. “The company’s irresponsible construction methods left the aircraft hangar structure extremely fragile.”

Big D Builders and Inland Crane received OSHA’s findings, as well as the recommended citations and fines, on Friday, Kearns told the Statesman. From that point, they had 15 days to comply, request an informal conference with OSHA or appeal the agency’s citations to the review board, and have already scheduled those informal conferences, Kearns said.

Victims’ relatives say contractors altered documents

The law firm representing the families of two workers killed in the collapse blamed Big D Builders, Steel Building Systems, Inland Crane and Speck Steel for the deaths of their loved ones in a lawsuit filed in July, the Statesman previously reported.

Enrique Serna, the families’ lawyer, accused the companies of altering the construction plans — and failing to get city approval for the changes — producing their own “hasty” materials to reinforce the structure, and allowing work on the site to continue on January 31 despite workers reporting “sagging beams” and “breaking cables” the day before.

Serna did not name the city of Boise or the contracted engineering firm, AHJ Engineers, in the lawsuit, though both were named in a tort claim filed against the city in May. After reviewing public records requested from the city, the law firm said it determined no lawsuit was warranted against those entities.

According to the Idaho Statesman, several workers at the hangar told police they had noticed bent beams, broken cables and general structural deficiencies. They reported these concerns to Durrant, owner of Big D Builders.

Durrant reportedly told a worker that the engineer had told him the building’s frame was sound because workers had attached ties to the beams, according to earlier reporting in the Statesman.

“There were enough warning signs that something was wrong,” Enrique Serna, an attorney representing the families, told the Statesman earlier by phone. “They clearly knew something was wrong.”

One crane operator for Inland Crane told police the company was at the site to “straighten the hangar because parts of it were warped,” while another claimed Big D Builders was cutting costs, according to previous reporting in the Statesman.

Big D Builders began demolishing and deconstructing the collapsed steel and concrete structure in June.

“(The) building (must) be rebuilt using (the) existing building permit, with modifications to the structural drawings,” according to a city permit filed by Big D Builders.

This story was originally published July 29, 2024 11:28 AM.