The Nimrod Review - Official Documents

The Nimrod Review
92
The Manufacture of the Seals
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75 On 20 July 1999, the Thales Group acquired a minority stake in Avimo Group Ltd, Avimo Ltd’s Parent
Company. The Thales Group subsequently acquired the remaining shares between 6 February 2001 and 17
November 2001. Following the purchase, Avimo Ltd was renamed Thales Optronics (Taunton) Limited. In order
to distinguish between the former and present guise of the company, I refer to its former and current names,
‘Avimo’ and ‘Thales’, respectively, for the remainder of this Chapter. It should be noted that, in November 2007,
the aerospace component business of Thales was sold to a new company known as Taunton Aerospace Limited
(Taunton), by way of a management buy-out and asset sale. Taunton is therefore the current manufacturer of
the Avimo seals but had no involvement in any Avimo seals supplied to the MOD until 2007 (i.e. after the loss
of XV230 on 2 September 2006). 76
Given that the Thales Group did not acquire any interest in Avimo until 1999, it proved difficult for Thales
to locate documents relating to the provision of the Avimo seals prior to that date. However, as a result of
investigations by Thales and Taunton, the Review has learnt that, from an unknown date (but at least from 1994
until 1999) the material for the Avimo seals was sourced from Dunlop. The material formulation of those seals
is unknown and Thales was unable to locate any contract relating to the supply of the seals by Dunlop. 77
From about May 2000, the manufacture of the Avimo seals was sub-contracted by Avimo (later Thales) to
a company known as Cellular Developments Limited (Cellular). Cellular is a very small rubber component
manufacturing company based near Petersfield in Hampshire. The company started business in 1982 and is
family-owned. It has some 22 employees and a modest turnover. It produces thousands of different lines each
year, often with very small order quantities. It specialises in sponge and solid rubber mouldings and extrusions,
rubber to metal bonded products, gaskets, and specialist rubber products used in a variety of different
applications including lighting, domestic appliance and optical engineering products. It has been registered to
British Standard ISO9002 since 1998.
Change in the compound used in Avimo Seals in 2000
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Cellular first received an order from Avimo (as it then was) to supply the rubber component for 475 Avimo seals
of varying sizes from 0.5” to 3” on, or about, 5 May 2000. The order was accompanied by a copy of the Avimo
Drawing, discussed above, but Cellular was not informed of the intended use of the seals. Cellular explained
to the Review that the information contained in the Avimo Drawing did not provide enough information from
which to make a rubber compound. Cellular considered that the only material specification on the Avimo
Drawing with any meaning was the hardness requirement of 60/65 and the choice of polymer, Neoprene. It
therefore selected a standard, good quality Neoprene that it kept in stock, which was to a British Standard, and
which met the hardness requirement (see further below).
Cellular’s internal development processes require that it manufacture samples of material and submit them to
the customer for approval prior to production. Its Initial Sample Inspection Report (ISIR) was duly submitted to
Avimo on, or about, 19 May 2000. The ISIR specifically gave the hardness requirement of the material as 60
but made no reference to the carbon content of the material. It did, however, state on its face “NEORPRENE TO
DRAWING SPECIFICATION”. Avimo approved the sample by signing and returning the ISR to Cellular, following
which Cellular duly fulfilled Avimo’s order.
Between 2002 and 2007, Cellular received further similar orders from Thales for more rubber Avimo seals
of varying sizes. These orders were also fulfilled by Cellular. The material used remained the same as that
approved under the ISIR in 2000. In respect of each new part number ordered by Thales between 2002 and
2007, 78 Cellular submitted a further ISIR, in materially identical terms to those I set out above. All orders were
75 Known at the time as the Thomson Group of companies (later the Thomson-CSF Group before becoming the Thales Group).
76 It should also be noted that, pursuant to the Business Sale Agreement (BSA) between Thales and Taunton, only continuing supply contracts were
transferred and it would appear, both from the list of customer contracts at Schedule 1 to the BSA and the documents held by Thales and Taunton,
that no supplies of the Avimo seal pursuant to the Avimo Drawings were being made to the MOD at the time of the BSA.
77 The only documents located were a limited number of Purchase Orders from Thales to Dunlop dated between 12 December 1992 and 30
September 1999.
78 The original Avimo Drawing specified 15 parts of different dimensions.