[chris]

Two tower workers were killed on April 13, 2011, when they fell roughly 340 feet from a radio transmission tower under construction in rural Tippecanoe County, Indiana, after the rigging they were riding gave way, authorities said.

The men were identified as Paul Aliff, 32, and Ernest Garcia, 29, both of Texas. According to the Tippecanoe County coroner's office, the two were part of a five-man crew from Electronics Research Inc., of Chandler, Indiana, that was extending the height of the WXXB (B102.9) tower near Buck Creek, northeast of Lafayette. Both were pronounced dead at the scene.

Investigators said the workers were riding a pole attached to the jump line of a gin pole, a hoisting device used to lift new sections into place, when they fell. Both men were wearing safety harnesses, but an initial review found that the anchorage was not properly secured and did not arrest the fall.

A member of the crew called 911 from the site to report that two workers were down. The recording, which runs about nine minutes, captures the caller relaying the men's condition and the tower's rural location to a county dispatcher, who then directs fire and ambulance crews to the scene over radio traffic on the same call.

The Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration opened an investigation. In September 2011 the agency proposed a penalty of $91,500 and cited the company for nine violations, four classified as knowing and five as serious, including a failure to provide adequate fall protection and unmarked load limits on some of the crew's equipment.

Electronics Research contested the citations and requested a hearing. In March 2012 the company and state regulators reached a settlement that cut the penalty to $18,000 and downgraded the central fall-protection violation from knowing to serious. Bill Harland, a vice president of the firm, called the accident tragic and said the company's legal defenses should not be construed as dishonoring the men who died. The agreement remained subject to approval by the Indiana Board of Safety Review.