Two workers have been killed in an industrial accident at Timken Company's Faircrest Plant in Stark County's Perry Township when a crane collapsed..

Brian Black and Mark Tovissi were working at the plant for Beaver Excavating.

Chief investigator Harry Campbell with the Stark County Coroner's Office says that the men were preparing a load to be lifted by an overhead crane.

"There was some type of a failure of the crane," Campbell tells AkronNewsNow.com, "which caused the boom to fall, striking both of them."

Campbell says the accident happened at about 12:50 on Saturday afternoon.

He says Black and Tovissi were working on the new caster site at Timken's Faircrest plant, which is located on Faircrest Street SW west of I-77 and south of U.S. 30.

TIMKEN COMPANY STATEMENT At approximately 12:45 p.m., a crane accident at a construction site at The Timken Company’s Faircrest Steel Plant, in Perry Township, Canton, OH, resulted in the fatalities of two Beaver Excavating workers.  On-site responders immediately contacted emergency and Perry Township police, who arrived at the scene shortly thereafter. OSHA officials also were notified. Construction operations were immediately suspended until further notice.  Out of respect for those involved, Timken also suspended its steel-making operations at the Faircrest plant.  Timken workers will return to their shifts in steel operations on Monday, May 6, beginning at 8:00 a.m.  No further information is immediately available. -----

(Earlier ANN coverage) Perry Township fire crews are responding to an industrial accident at the Timken Company's Faircrest steel plant this afternoon.

Perry Fire dispatchers tell AkronNewsNow that no further details are available, other than the fact that members of the department have gone to the scene.

The plant is located on Faircrest St. SW in Perry Township, west of I-77 and south of U.S. 30.

Stay with AkronNewsNow for updates on this developing news story.

Rising demand for the steel produced by Canton-based Timken Company is leading to a big expansion of the company's flagship steel plant.

Ground was broken today for a 225-million dollar expansion of Stark County's Faircrest steel plant.

Tom Moline, Timken's Vice President for Steel Manufacturing, says that the Faircrest plant already puts out a million tons of steel per year ...and this expansion will add even more capacity.

"The groundbreaking actually celebrates several projects that integrate together to increase the Faircrest steel plant's finished capacity by about 25 percent," Moline tells AkronNewsNow.com, "or approximately 175,000 tons a year."

And Moline says that the Faircrest plant already has a big role among Timken's three Canton plants.

"Together these facilities have the capacity to melt and process approximately 1.7 million tons of steel per year," Moline says, "and one million of those tons come from our Faircrest steel plant."

Moline calls the Faircrest plant "state of the art", and that output has doubled since the plant opened in the mid-1980s.

Moline says there'll be construction-related jobs with the expansion, and that it means job security for the plant's 425 workers at Faircrest...part of Timken's presence of over 5,000 workers in the Canton area.  And he says continued growth in demand is good for the company's employment future as well.

Union steelworkers rejected a new contract with the Timken Company on Sunday.

The Canton Repository reports the new pact included a $225 million expansion to its Faircrest plant and wage increases.

Members of United Steelworkers Local 1123 Golden Lodge rejected the tentative agreement by a vote of 917-608.

The current contract remains in effect until December 2013.

On the Web: www.cantonrep.com