Big Dig tunnel inspection reveals 60 more trouble spots after deadly collapse

BOSTON — The head of the agency overseeing Boston's Big Dig highway project ordered a review of the entire highway system Wednesday after investigators looking into the fatal collapse of concrete ceiling slabs found 60 more questionable areas inside the same tunnel.

Initial inspections revealed dozens of signs of bolts loosening and other potential failures in the eastbound connector tunnel, part of the main route to Boston's Logan Airport, Turnpike Authority officials and the Big Dig project manager said.

There were trouble spots in the westbound lanes of the tunnel, as well, they said.

"We're evaluating each of these individual sites," Massachusetts Turnpike Authority Chairman Matthew Amorello said. Though he added, "The tunnel system is safe."

There had been plans to reopen the connector tunnel Wednesday, but Amorello said it would remain closed indefinitely to ensure motorists' safety.

Twelve tons of massive cement ceiling panels crashed down late Monday night inside the tunnel, crushing a car and killing a 38-year-old woman inside. Her husband barely escaped by crawling through a gap in the widow.

U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan, whose office has been conducting a yearlong investigation into problems the massive highway project, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that his investigators are turning their attention to whether contractors involved in that part of the system delivered the goods and services they promised.

"We obviously want to identify any public safety risks ... but also to ensure that what the government paid for — through tax dollars — is in fact what was delivered," Sullivan said.

The woman's death could also lead to charges of negligent homicide, said Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly, who is treating the section of Interstate 90 eastbound, near the entrance of a connector tunnel to Logan International Airport, as a crime scene.

Amorello has said a steel "tieback" that held a 40-foot section of ceiling over eastbound Interstate 90 gave way, letting the concrete slabs loose as the car drove beneath it.

He and Michael Lewis, project director for the Big Dig, told reporters Wednesday that inspectors had also discovered some bolts were starting to come from that tunnel's concrete ceiling, and that in other locations there were gaps between the ceiling and a metal plate holding the 3-ton panels in place.

The system-wide evaluation ordered Wednesday covers the entire metro Boston highway system — roadways, bridges, tunnels and even areas that weren't part of the $14.6 billion Big Dig project.