Arconic knowingly supplied flammable panels for use in tower: emails
Source: Reuters
Sat Jun 24, 2017 | 9:16am EDT
By Tom Bergin | LONDON
Six emails sent by and to an Arconic Inc (ARNC.N) sales manager raise questions about why the company supplied combustible cladding to a distributor for use at Grenfell Tower, despite publicly warning such panels were a fire risk for tall buildings. The emails, dating from 2014 and seen by Reuters, were between Deborah French, Arconic's UK sales manager, and executives at the contractors involved in the bidding process for the refurbishment contract at Grenfell Tower in London, where 79 people died in a blaze last week.
When asked about the emails, Arconic said in a statement that it had known the panels would be used at Grenfell Tower but that it was not its role to decide what was or was not compliant with local building regulations.
The company manufactures three main types of Reynobond panel-- one with a polyethylene (PE) core, one with a fire retardant core and another with a non-combustible core, according to its website.
Diagrams in a 2016 Arconic brochure for its Reynobond panels describe how PE core panels are suitable up to 10 meters in height. Panels with a fire resistant core -- the FR model -- can be used up to 30 meters, while above that height, panels with the non-combustible core -- the A2 model -- should be used, the brochure says.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-fire-arconic-idUSKBN19F05M
unblock
(52,253 posts)Ptah
(33,032 posts)Arconic is a company created by Alcoa Inc.s separation into two
independent, publicly traded companies in the second half of 2016.
Alcoa Inc. spun off its bauxite, alumina, and aluminum operations
to a new company called Alcoa Corp.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arconic
irisblue
(32,980 posts)Do perpetrator walks when they arrest white collar criminals who helped burn to death humans.
not fooled
(5,801 posts)aren't really crimes, y'know--"Corporations Are People, My Friend" except when crimes are committed--then they are abstract, impersonal legal entities that HAD to break the law because their prime directive is maximizing shareholder profits.
Or some such gobbledygook that they tell us to ensure that no one goes to jail.
The money grubbers have convinced enough of society that profits and corporate rights are sacrosanct.
christx30
(6,241 posts)and all is forgotten.
Personally, I'd like for the death penalty to be a thing for companies if their business practices kill people. If through knowingly neglecting safety issues a company kills someone in order to make a profit, the execs would get jail, and the company would cease to exist. All of it's assets would be sold, and all money would go to the families of those killed.
You want to avoid this happening to the company you own, don't JUST follow the law. Make the safety and health of your employees and customers your #1 thing, with profit be a close second.
not fooled
(5,801 posts)and there is no inherent reason why what you lay out couldn't happen, except that the ideas and perceptions of most of the U.S. population have been carefully and deliberately nurtured to believe what the corporations want them to believe. We are the most heavily propagandized nation in the history of the world, and it shows.
Just like why should labor be taxed at a higher rate than capital, why should we squander money on the war machine, etc. etc. etc. Because the populace has been brainwashed to believe that we have to.
Which is why the GOPee wants to further destroy public education, and why right-wing kooks are against teaching critical thinking skills and having an educated citizenry.
They want the peasants stupid, uninformed, and hence easily controlled.
pansypoo53219
(20,978 posts)maxsolomon
(33,345 posts)Speaking just of the American Construction process, here's what could have gone wrong:
All the members of the project team (sans Owner) have a responsibility to identify that this product should have been disallowed in that application.
If the FR model was specified by the Design team >30 meters, it should have been identified in the Permit Review as disallowed (flame spread information is required). First line of defense.
If it was Substituted during construction by Contractor team, then there will be a paper trail of that approval, and the subsequent Submittal approval. It is a very specific process in Division 0 of Specifications. The architect, contractor, and owner will have signatures on that document. Often these decisions are driven by expediency and money. But that's the 2nd line of defense.
After that, the only line of defense is the Building Inspector and the Fire Marshal, to recognize that "Fire Resistant" is not the product allowed >30 meters (and that is one very misleading product name), and instead know that "A2" is. And the Fire Marshall might not even come on site until that product is installed.
At this point, I'd lay odds that the FR was used in incompetence, not in malevolence.