Hangar collapse at Fairbairn

[Lurk R]

Hangar collapses at RAAF base

Twelve men have been injured after a building collapsed at the Fairbairn Royal Australian Air Force base in Canberra.

The ambulance service says a number of the men have fractures, while others have back injuries.

The accident happened at the construction site of a new VIP hangar.

Emergency vehicles have swarmed around the hangar, which has been reduced to a crumpled mass of steel.

It appears the metal framework of the hangar caved in at the roof.

A crane is lowering rescue teams in through the gaping hole to free any trapped workers.

Ambulance crews are on standby to treat the injured and all non-essential traffic is being diverted from the scene.

[NCC1701]

Building workers at RAAF Fairbairn, across from Canberra Airport, surfed a collapsing wave of metal roofing 14 metres to the ground yesterday, miraculously escaping death.

Workers employed by civil engineering firm Strarch International were on the roof of the giant spiderweb of steel which was to eventually house the RAAF's VIP fleet of business jets when shortly before noon the structure began to give way.

The men had no option but to cling on as retaining bolts sheared and scaffolding collapsed when the enormous building, midway through its construction, folded almost in half.

Three vehicles parked under the wreckage were flattened, witnesses describing it as a miracle that no-one was killed. "If there had been anyone stuck in those vehicles, for whatever reason, they would have been killed. It is just amazing that nobody was," said CFMEU official Phil Johnstone, who toured the wreckage soon after the accident.

Workcover ACT launched an immediate investigation.

Fifteen men were on the roof when it slowly buckled in on itself. Air force and construction site medical officers were the first on the scene, administering first aid until emergency services arrived 15 minutes later. Fire trucks from Chisholm, Fyshwick and Greenway attended the accident. Fire Brigade acting district officer Tony Ross said the hazardous materials unit was called in as a safety precaution but did not need to be used.

The urban search and rescue team was placed on stand-by before it became clear that nobody was trapped beneath the rubble. A special aerial lifting device was used by fire brigade officers to lift the most seriously injured worker from the tangle of iron, steel and concrete.

"A clinical decision was made not to move him until his condition had stabilised," said ACT Emergency Services Bureau operations manager David Foot. Paramedics were lifted into the area to assess his condition, administering treatment before securing him to the lifting device.

The man was taken by ambulance to Canberra Hospital where his condition was downgraded from serious to stable yesterday afternoon. Eleven other men were taken to hospital, with three admitted for observation and reported to be in a stable condition last night.

Construction on the $9.5 million VIP aircraft hangar began in September last year and was due to be completed by this October. It was designed to house two Boeing business jets and three Challenger 604s, used by the RAAF to fly the Prime Minister, senior ministers and public servants to engagements in Australia and overseas. There were no aircraft in the hangar at the time of the collapse.

The Canberra International Airport was contracted by the Defence Department to build the structure, with civilian construction workers used on the project. Fifty-five people were on the site at the time of the collapse.

Construction Control, the overall project manager, refused to comment on the incident yesterday.

Management at Strarch International Ltd, responsible for the design and construction hangar, was also unavailable for comment. Strarch International specialise in the design and construction of large, clear-span buildings such as sports stadiums, hangars and warehouses using "stress-erection" technology which, its website says, provides cost-effective solutions in a short time-frame.

Construction companies would not comment, site workers were told not to say anything and the Defence Department referred all questions to Canberra Airport.

Airport managing director Stephen Byron said he did not know how the accident happened.

"The cause of the accident is unknown and unclear. We will be seeking the answers so that we can find out how this occurred," he said.

Inspectors from Workcover ACT began their investigations into the cause of the accident yesterday. ACT Occupational Health and Safety Commissioner Jocelyn Plovitts said all parties had been quick to cooperate with authorities.

"The first step will be to seek engineering advice on structural matters. It will probably take a couple of weeks to get results including metallurgy tests," she said. It is understood staff of Construction Control will be the first called to give evidence at the Workcover investigation.

Union officials collected the names of those on the site and were organising counselling and monitoring for future stress disorders arising out of the accident.

"Our task now is to keep an eye on those workers. Post-traumatic stress disorder could take about three months to appear. Those bricklayers and carpenters could be anywhere in a couple of months' time," said the CFMEU's Mr Johnstone.

Mr Johnstone said construction workers would continue to be paid but there would be no more work on the project until the investigation was finished.

[rrogerwilco]

Does anyone know why this hangar collapsed?