Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

Feds finish Boston Big Dig investigation

|
|
 
  
Published: July 11, 2007 at 9:48 AM

BOSTON, July 11 (UPI) -- Builders and suppliers are to blame for a tunnel collapse that killed one woman beneath Boston Harbor in Massachusetts, said federal investigators.

The Big Dig consortium, led by Bechtel Corp., should have known the epoxy glue used to hold ceiling panel bolts in place could slip over time, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded.

The NTSB Tuesday, in a summary of its investigation, said "Big Dig" workers should have monitored the concrete panels after bolts were discovered to be sliding out of place in 1999.

Milena Del Valle, 39, was crushed to death a year ago when panels weighing 26 tons fell on her car in a tunnel beneath Boston Harbor.

The accident followed years of cost overruns and complaints about shabby construction at the Big Dig, a maze of highway tunnels beneath Boston's downtown. The cost of the project stands at $14.6 billion.

Del Valle's family is suing Bechtel and a decision is expected within several weeks on whether the Massachusetts' attorney general will file criminal charges.

Topics: Milena Del Valle
© 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
Notable deaths of 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee AmfAR Cinema Against AIDS gala
Indianapolis 500 Presidential Medal of Freedom Memorial Day around the nation
Additional Top News Stories
1 of 27
Snigdha Nandipati of San Diego wins Finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee
View Caption
Snigdha Nandipati of San Diego, California watches confetti rain down as she wins the two-day Scripps National Spelling Bee championship, May 31, 2012, in National Harbor, Maryland. Nandipati successfully spelled the word .* guetapens *, meaning to lure or ambush. UPI/Mike Theiler
fark
Man killed in Spencer fire. The lava lamps must have ignited the blacklight posters
Passenger jet crashes into apartment building in Nigerian capitol. Over 150 princes, bank officials,...
I'll see your zombie apocalypse, and raise you "swarms of deadly spiders" invading a town in India...
Photoshop this woman at the wheel
New book is full of girls in their bedrooms, will be read by people who need to have a seat right...
★☆☆☆☆ Michigan is an uninhabitable swamp. Do not settle