“That was welded in Columbus, Ohio and sent to us in boxcars,” he said. “The welds were no good. It pulled apart.”
The Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry later determined faulty welding was the cause of the collapse, according to an Oct. 18, 1993, Pioneer Press article.
Barnard keeps photos of the broken welds on the collapsed tower — they are a reminder to him that he thinks the collapse of the tower was not the fault of the workers or the company he worked for, National Steel Erectors out of Oklahoma.
On the morning of September 7, 1971, while being constructed, the tower suddenly collapsed – “bent like spaghetti,” according to eyewitnesses.
The tower was also a unique type of construction holding three vertical antennas on a triangular base 1,300 feet off the ground.
The project was supervised by a company located in Oklahoma. “Safety concerns were raised during the installation and were many times rebuffed by the Oklahoma supervisors,” stated the failure analysis.
The [Telefarm] towers were built in the 1970s for analog television, and were replacements for a single “candelabra” style tower that collapsed prior to completion in 1971, killing six workers on the tower and one on the ground.
1971 TV tower collapse survivor shares story (presspubs.com) SHOREVIEW — Don Barnard, 77, is the only survivor left from the Shoreview TV tower collapse that left seven workers dead on Sept. 7, 1971, 45 years ago.
7 Killed as a Minnesota Television Tower Collapses (nytimes.com) SHOREVIEW, Minn., Sept. 7 (UPI)—Seven men were killed today when a new, 1,375‐foot television tower collapsed and crashed through part of a transmitter building below.
45 years later, Shoreview towers stand strong (presspubs.com) SHOREVIEW — It has been 45 years since the Shoreview TV tower collapse that left seven workers dead the day after Labor Day in 1971.