‘They were happy in Idaho.’ Lawyer shares new details on hangar-collapse victims

More than a week after the collapse of a hangar under construction at the Boise Airport, new details about two of the victims have emerged, even as little information has come out about what caused the accident, which killed three people on site and injured nine.

At a Friday news conference, a Boise lawyer representing two of the people killed said his office was still investigating the Jan. 31 collapse of the building’s skeleton. The building was set to be a standalone hangar for Jackson Jet Center.

“At this point in time, I don’t know yet all the details that led to this disaster,” Enrique Serna said. “This is like building a puzzle when you first buy it and get it out of the box. I know where all the pieces are, but I haven’t seen the final picture yet.”

“At this time, all we know is that this is a terrible tragedy that should have not happened,” he added. “This accident was of a large-scale magnitude. Something went terribly wrong.”

Workers ‘good at their trade, happy in Idaho’

Serna shared information about his clients, Mario Sontay Tzi, 32, and Mariano “Alex” Coc Och, 24, both from Guatemala, who came to Idaho to work in construction.

“They were very good at their trade,” he said. “They were very happy in Idaho. They used to go to the Chevron station by the airport to get their morning coffee en route to building this hangar. They were proudly supporting their families in Guatemala, sending money back every week. They were taking care of their kids, their parents, their uncles. They were living the American Dream.”

Sontay Tzi’s family, including his parents, wife, and brother, dialed in from Guatemala and briefly introduced themselves during the news conference, held over Zoom in both English and Spanish. Throughout the event, they kept their camera trained on a small memorial to Sontay Tzi: a framed photo of him smiling, wearing a safety harness; a smaller family photo; and a votive candle burning in front of both.

The families’ top priority, Serna said, is for the bodies of their loved ones to be sent home to Guatemala as soon as the death certificates are finalized.

He said it was too soon to say what justice for the victims would look like, but suggested he would seek a monetary award for their families.

Serna did not directly criticize Big D Builders, the Meridian contractor working to build the hangar. But he noted that these kinds of cases often become a “gladiator match” between his office and corporations’ defense attorneys, he said.

“There are a lot of corporations that ignore warnings … that cut corners,” he said. “We will get to the bottom line of what happened.”

Craig Durrant, 59, was also killed in the collapse. He was one of the founders of Big D Builders.

Parents ‘were proud of their sons’

Part of Serna’s motivation for taking the case, he said, was his love for Idaho.

“I know Idahoans deserve better than to see the wreckage that is left in the airport that we all fly in and out of,” he said. “We don’t want this to happen again. Innocent lives get taken when they shouldn’t.”

As for the families of the victims, still awaiting the bodies of their loved ones, he emphasized their profound grief. They “were proud of their sons, who went to the U.S. to earn a good life.”

“It’s a pain, not only for a family,” he said in Spanish. “It’s a town, it’s a community, it’s a nation.”

“No one,” he added, “would ever want to die in such conditions.”

GoFundMe accounts have been set up for some survivors.