Crane may have been weakened before falling

BRAINTREE -- Last week, laborers were seen cutting and burning pieces of the metal craneway at the former Fore River Shipyard that on Wednesday collapsed onto an adjacent building, killing two subcontractors inside, said a witness at a neighboring business.

"They'd be up on the rafters and you'd see the sparks from a burning tool of some sort," said Steven Hajjar, whose Quincy office overlooks the shipyard, where the accident occurred. "They've been weakening it all along."

Testa Corp. demolished part of the craneway in November, which led some Braintree officials to speculate that the work may have compromised the section. But Hajjar said he thought that the more recent work -- just before last weekend's high winds and heavy snow -- may have rendered it unstable.

Authorities have yet to determine what prompted the collapse of the 180-foot-tall framework. The structure spanned property in Quincy and Braintree that is being redeveloped by automobile dealer Daniel Quirk. The Quincy portion was taken down in November. Last month, Testa officials were preparing to take down the rest of the craneway on the Braintree side and had obtained a permit to do so.

Braintree building inspector Robert Galewski said yesterday that he had not inspected the crane since the November demolition. Galewski said he had no reason to check on the stability of the crane after explosives were used to take down the Quincy portion of the massive steel craneway, which once contained 22 bays and lifted ships into dry docks.

Galewski said he conducted site visits in October and in mid-December, but did not produce inspection reports, instead issuing verbal warnings.

"If I saw a piece of steel that was angled at a certain location, I would have brought that up in my letter or pointed that out if it appeared to be an unsafe structure," he said. "I didn't want to focus on the steel. I was there primarily for the building."

On Dec. 15, Galewski sent shipyard owner Quirk a letter condemning the adjacent building, a turret shop that was vacated in 1986, when General Dynamics left the shipyard. The letter urged Quirk to raze the building immediately. Galewski said yesterday that he had seen walls, strips of siding, and parts of windows falling off the structure.

Testa, which owned the craneway and had a contract with Quirk to take down the building, applied for the permit the day the building was condemned.

"I would think they were going to start work the next day," said Galewski, who approved of the application immediately.

Galewski could not explain yesterday why construction work was going on simultaneously.

"For them, the directive was to deal with the building," he said. "That's what they should have been concentrating on."

But Testa spokeswoman Nancy Sterling said she did not believe the workers had been on the craneway recently, saying that if they were it would have been to cut pieces of steel from the Quincy side in November.

"As far as we know, we have not been able to identify anyone who has been up there doing any cutting on the Braintree side," Sterling said.

She also initially said that the demolition of the building was delayed because the workers first had to remove asbestos from the building, a process that took several weeks because of the weather, the amount of asbestos, and the size of the building.

But the Department of Environmental Protection said yesterday that Testa had applied to conduct the asbestos abatement in October and had been working inside the building since Oct. 28, a full 13 weeks.

Sterling said last night that the initial asbestos removal involved only pipes and that the rest of the work had to await an additional permit. "The asbestos was so embedded in the building, that they literally would have had to demolish the building," she said. "They could not do that until they had the demolition permit."

Norfolk District Attorney William R. Keating has launched a criminal investigation into the accident that left two dead and four injured. Two remain hospitalized, said Keating spokesman David Traub. Killed were 44-year-old Elvis Munoz of Lawrence, and David P. May Jr., 36, of Manchester, N.H.

May, a native of Portland, Maine, had recently separated from his wife, and was living in Manchester, N.H. His father, David Sr., said he had previously worked as a general manager for a company shipping caviar and that he loved fishing. When he relocated, he worked his way up to become a superintendent on the job with A-Best Abatement of Salem, N.H.

"Everyone at A-Best Abatement is deeply saddened by the loss of our friend and employee," said company president Sam Homsey. "We have been, and will continue to cooperate with the authorities as they complete their investigation of this horrific tragedy."

Stephanie Ebbert can be reached at ebbert@globe.com.