BOISE, Idaho: A hangar under construction on the grounds of the airport in Boise, Idaho, collapsed Wednesday, killing three people and injuring another nine, officials said.Five of those injured in the collapse are in critical condition, the city said in a statement released Wednesday night.Authorities responded at about 5 p.m. to a private business located at the Boise Airport for a steel-framed hangar that collapsed, Boise Fire Department Operations Chief Aaron Hummel said during an earlier news briefing.Everyone who had been at the site had been accounted for as of Wednesday evening, he said.“It was a very chaotic scene,” Hummel said, describing the incident as a “large-scale collapse” of the framework of the building.“I don’t know what caused it, but I can tell you it was a pretty global collapse,” he said, calling it “catastrophic.”Boise Airport operations were not impacted, officials said.Terra Furman was driving on Interstate 84 at about 5:30 p.m. when she spotted at least 20 police cars, ambulances and firetrucks about a quarter mile (400 meters) from the entry to the airport. They were around what she described as a crane folded in half and a building collapsed into the shape of an ‘M.’“The walls were still up at a point and the middle collapsed in on either side,” she said.Hummel said some of the victims were on a hoist or other elevated platform at the time the structure fell, and that required some specialized rescue efforts. He confirmed that a crane also collapsed in the incident.Leticia Ramirez, a spokesperson for Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, said emergency and trauma teams were working with first responders to treat patients who arrived from the scene.Authorities are investigating what caused the collapse. It happened next to Jackson Jet Center, which offers private airplane charters and maintenance.Boise city permitting records show the contractor Big D Builders had obtained permits to build a 39,000-square-foot (3,623-square-meter) jet hangar for Jackson Jet Center.The $6.2 million project was to include the construction of a concrete foundation and a metal building. Messages left by phone and email seeking comment from Big D Builders were not immediately returned.
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