Yahoo Movies Grenfell Tower cladding firm ‘dismissed failed safety test as rogue result’, inquiry hears
The firm which supplied cladding panels to Grenfell Tower dismissed a failed fire test on its product as a “rogue result” and kept the report away from customers, the inquiry into the blaze has heard.
Arconic manufactured Reynobond panels with a plastic core which were part of the cladding system on the west London tower block, and which have been identified as the “principal reason” for fire rapidly spreading up the tower in the 2017 disaster.
The inquiry has heard two types of panel, ‘cassette’ and ‘rivet’, were tested for how they coped in a fire, with “very great” differences in their performance.
Cassette panels burned faster and released around seven times as much heat and three times the rate of smoke as rivet panels in the 2004 tests, but both products were subsequently marketed under the same fire safety certificate.
Claude Wehrle, Arconic’s technical manager, said in his written statement the failed test for cassette panels was “not seen as a key issue or priority”.
“The company had no reason to suspect this was anything other than the rogue result of a standard classification test”, he said, adding that the company had a “general view that the cassette variant would perform better than the rivet type due to fewer exposed edges”.
Claude Schmidt, the president of Arconic’s French division, accepted on Tuesday a regulatory document issued by the British Board of Agrement (BBA) in 2008 did not distinguish between the two types of Reynobond panel.
Richard Millett QC, counsel to the inquiry, asked him: “These are not small differences, are they? The differences in results between rivet and cassette are very great.
“Do you accept that the cassette, according to these tests, performed spectacularly worse than the rivet?”
Speaking with the help of a translator, Mr Schmidt agreed.
Inquiry Chairman Sir Martin Moore Bick interjected to ask: “One possible view of the way that Arconic responded to that test is that it was irrational and irresponsible not to carry out further tests to establish whether the cassette system performed as badly as the first test suggested. What do you say about that?”
Mr Schmidt replied: “Yes, I think extra tests should have been carried out.”
Reynobond cassette panels with a plastic core were applied to Grenfell during the renovation work which concluded in 2016, a year before the fatal fire.
Arconic witnesses have told the inquiry they were not aware of the false statement on the BBA certificate until after the disaster.
Mr Schmidt accepted the results of the failed fire safety test on the cassette panels would not be publicly known about if the Grenfell disaster had not happened, but rejected a suggestion it was Arconic’s “deadly secret”.
He argued the panels are “flammable but not necessarily dangerous”, and could be incorporated safety into a cladding system.
The inquiry continues.
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