A hangar under construction at the airport in Boise, Idaho, collapsed Wednesday, killing three workers and wounding nine others, according to officials.
Authorities rushed to a private business at the Boise Airport around 5 p.m. local time after a steel-framed hangar collapsed, according to Boise Fire Department Operations Chief Aaron Hummel during a news briefing.
He stated that everyone who had been at the site had been accounted for as of Wednesday evening. Hummel declined to comment on the condition of the injured or whether anyone had died.
However, in a statement issued late Wednesday night, the city of Boise confirmed that three persons were pronounced deceased on the site. According to the city, five of the nine people injured were hospitalized in critical condition.
The victims’ names were not immediately published.
“It was a very chaotic scene,” Hummel added, calling the disaster a “large-scale collapse” of the building’s framework.
“I don’t know what caused it, but I can tell you it was a pretty global collapse,” he remarked, which he described as “catastrophic.”
Boise Airport operations were unaffected, according to officials.
Terra Furman was driving on Interstate 84 about a quarter mile from the airport at 5:30 p.m. when she noticed at least 20 police cars, ambulances, and firetrucks around what she described as a crane folded in half and a building shaped like a ‘M.’
“The walls were still up at a point and the middle collapsed in on either side,” she went on to say.
Hummel stated that several of the casualties were on a hoist or another elevated platform when the structure collapsed, necessitating specialized rescue attempts. He stated that a crane also collapsed during the incident.
Leticia Ramirez, a spokesperson for Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, stated that emergency and trauma teams were collaborating with first responders to treat patients who arrived at the scene.
Authorities are examining the cause of the collapse.