Big Dig ceiling collapse

[2] The state Turnpike Authority and the Federal Highway Administration, citing the ongoing criminal investigation, refused requests received after the accident to release documents relating to the work conducted along the Seaport connector, including:[3] One year earlier, US House Representative Stephen Lynch also had trouble obtaining records regarding the Big Dig tunnel leaks for the Congress' Committee on Government Oversight.

At the request of all the members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation, the National Transportation Safety Board dispatched a six-member civil engineering team to Boston to inspect the accident scene and determine whether a full-scale investigation was warranted.

[11] On August 8, 2007, a Suffolk County Grand Jury indicted epoxy company Powers Fasteners, Inc., on one charge of involuntary manslaughter, with the maximum penalty in Massachusetts being a fine of $1,000.

[14] On July 13, 2006, the leaders of the state legislature, Senate President Robert Travaglini and House Speaker Sal DiMasi, called upon Turnpike Authority chairman Matthew J. Amorello, who provided oversight of the project, to consider stepping down from his position and accepting a diminished role.

[19] On July 27, 2006, after the Supreme Judicial Court rejected his request and shortly before the hearing was to have begun, Armorello announced his intention to resign as Chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority effective August 15, 2006.

Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation John Cogliano also came under fire after he chose to hire Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, the company that was responsible for overseeing the original construction of the tunnel, to inspect the repairs.

[21] On November 27, 2006, departing Attorney General Tom Reilly announced that the state would launch a civil suit over the collapse of the ceiling in the Ted Williams Tunnel.

[26] In September 2008, the Del Valle family announced that they had reached a $28 million settlement, resolving the lawsuits against all 15 companies involved in construction of the tunnel, including the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority.

[27] There were other difficulties with the design and construction of the Big Dig project, including numerous leaks, dangerous guardrails, and the threat of heavy lighting fixtures also falling from the ceilings.

The Georgia DOT found that failure of the same epoxy at fault for the ceiling collapse was also to blame for the 2011 fall of a fenced and lighted covered-walkway structure attached to the south side of the relatively new 17th Street Bridge, which links Atlantic Station to Midtown Atlanta over I-75/I-85.