Contractor Faces $200K Fine After Hangar Collapse Kills 3, Injures 8

An Idaho contractor is facing proposed penalties totaling $198,586 for unsafe practices that caused an airport hangar under construction in Idaho to collapse January 31, according to the U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration.

The collapse killed three workers – including one of the contractor’s founders – and injured at least eight. (Initial reports had said nine were injured, five of them seriously.)  

The three killed in the incident were identified as Craig Durrant, 59; Mariano Coc Och, 24; and Mario Sontay Tzi, 32, according to the Ada County Coroner. Craig Durrant was the founder of Big D Builders Inc. of Meridian and the brother of the company’s owner, Denis Durrant.

According to OSHA, Big D Builders “ignored standard safety procedures and visible warning signs during construction.”

“The company’s irresponsible construction methods left the aircraft hangar’s structure extremely vulnerable,” said OSHA Area Director David Kearns in Boise. “The tragic loss and pain suffered by so many is compounded by the fact that Big D Builders could have prevented all of this from happening.”

The company was erecting a 300-foot-long steel hangar at Boise Airport “without using sufficient bracing or tensioned guy wires,” OSHA says. The contractor also “ignored numerous indications that the structure was unstable, including visibly curved, bent and wavy structural I-beams, unbalanced columns and several snapped wire rope cables.”

Despite that, workers continued to add 150-foot-long bays that OSHA said were not straight and had loose critical connecting bolts. OSHA added that “rather than installing additional bracing or temporary guy lines per steel erection industry standards, (the contractor) used straps to straighten the additional spans.”

There were about 30 people working at the site. Some were on an aerial work platform and had to be rescued. The $6 million project involved building a 39,000-square-foot hangar for private charter flight and maintenance company Jackson Jet Center.

News photos and video from the scene showed bolts connecting the steel beams to the concrete base had come out. The hangar’s roof beams appeared to have collapsed at the center.

Inland Crane, which had been hired for assistance in erecting the hangar, had a crane on site that was placing a steel truss. When the hangar collapsed, the impact caused the crane’s boom to break, according to a statement from Inland Vice President Jeremy Haener soon after the incident.

Inland Crane faces a proposed $10,163 penalty from OSHA for not maintaining structural stability at all times during the erection process. According to OSHA, Inland Crane had four cranes and ground crew working to rig, lift and support ground-assembled bays while they were placed on columns and joined at the middle peak. “During hoisting and erection activities there were significant visible lengthwise bends/curves in the solid web structural I-beam rafters, an out-of-plumb column, and cables/wires were snapping and breaking.”

Inland Crane has maintained that it was not the cause of the collapse.

As for Big D Builders, its workers had not been trained on bolt-tightening requirements, torquing methods and structural stability of long-span rafters, according to OSHA. The company’s scissor lifts, boom lifts and rough-terrain forklifts were used throughout the site in mud and standing water.

According to OSHA records, Big D Builders was fined $4,314.80 for workers exposed to 33-foot fall hazards on June 22, 2022. It was fined again $21,875 for exposing workers to 25-foot fall hazards on or before January 5, 2023.

According to its website, Big D Builders has been in business since 1964. It is a design/build contractor with 22 full-time employees. It also performs pre-engineered steel buildings and installation.

The families of deceased workers Och and Tzi have filed a lawsuit against Big D Builders, Inland Crane, Steel Building Systems and Speck Steel.