The airport terminal expansion project in Las Vegas had its second serious accident within four months when a rebar cage collapsed and trapped five ironworkers for half an hour. On June 23, the 70-ft-long cage collapsed on ironworkers at the Terminal 3 project at McCarran International Airport. The workers were attaching interior wire supports for the No. 11-sized rebar cage, lying on the ground lengthwise. The cage was to serve as a structural component of a subterranean roadway bridge in front of the new 1.87-million-sq-ft, $2.4-billion structure.
An unidentified worker used a forklift to elevate the rebar until the Clark County Fire Dept. arrived and the workers could be cut free. The ironworkers were employed by San Diego-based Pacific Coast Steel, which had been on the site since February as a subcontractor to Perini Building Co., a unit of Tutor Perini Corp., Framingham, Mass. Pacific Coast Steel has completed over 1,400 rebar cages at the airport, each weighing up to 30,000 pounds once complete.