MTA Halts Tunnel Work After Mishap : Subway: Officials cite a locomotive accident that hospitalized three workers. They say the incident is the latest in a series of safety violations.

The Los Angeles subway project’s largest tunneling job has been shut down because of the contractor’s “serious safety violations” and a locomotive accident that hospitalized three workers, officials said Monday.

The head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s rail construction staff said the tunneling operations, along Vermont Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard, would remain halted until the contractor takes corrective actions.

The most seriously injured worker, a tunneling superintendent for the contractor, Shea-Kiewit-Kenny, suffered cut leg tendons when he jumped from the out-of-control locomotive. Citing alleged violations of safety regulations and other problems, the MTA’s construction manager halted tunneling and ordered the superintendent’s removal from the subway project.

The incident is under investigation by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, according to the agency’s deputy chief, Mark Carleson.

The injuries occurred at 10:10 a.m. Friday, after the superintendent transported seven other workers into the tunnel on the locomotive, according to the superintendent and MTA officials. When the locomotive began careening out of control and the superintendent feared a derailment, he and the seven others jumped off.

“I jumped off and it hit my knee,” said the superintendent, Norm Hutchins, who was recuperating from leg surgery Monday at Queen of Angels Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center. “. . . It’s not hurt bad. It’s just a cut.” Hutchins later could not be reached for comment on the effort to remove him from the Metro Rail project.

Officials at the MTA and the state labor department said it would be a violation of safety regulations for workers to ride on a locomotive not outfitted with seats and other passenger features.

“There were seven people on top of the engine, which is itself a violation of safety standards,” said Bill Heard, an MTA spokesman.

In a letter to Shea-Kiewit-Kenny, the engineer who administers the tunneling contract on behalf of the MTA’s construction manager described the accident as the latest example of “your ongoing unacceptable safety and quality performance on this project.”

Representatives of Shea-Kiewit-Kenny, a joint venture of three construction firms, declined to comment.

Joel Sandberg, the MTA’s subway project manager, said the alleged safety violations included the contractor’s improper maintenance and operation of the construction rails and the trains that haul dirt from excavation sites.

“It’s not the number of safety violations that has been of concern, but the length of time it’s taking the contractor to correct them,” he said. “Safety wasn’t given priority attention by the contractor.”

The closure is only the latest difficulty to beset the $165-million contract, encompassing 12.1 miles of twin tunnels under construction along Vermont Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard.

From last July through December, tunneling underneath Hollywood Boulevard was halted while workers pumped the equivalent of a small town’s water supply from the tunnel’s path.

Disputes worth tens of millions of dollars are already under way between the MTA and Shea-Kiewit-Kenny, regarding responsibility for the water problems and other conditions. And the MTA’s construction manager, Parsons-Dillingham, has within the last two months reassigned its top engineer overseeing the contract.

Referring to the tunneling shutdown announced Monday, the MTA’s top executive, Franklin E. White, called the action “a clear demonstration of our commitment to safety both for our workers and for the public.”