The chemical leak that prompted evacuations in Orange County, Calif., on Friday occurred at a site belonging to GKN Aerospace, a manufacturing company based in the United Kingdom that produces jet engine parts, landing gear and other components for military and civilian aircraft.<\/p>\n
About 16,000 people are employed at the company overall, including at least 540 at the location with the leak in Garden Grove, Calif., according to a 2024 news release. Its products are used in planes produced by Airbus, Boeing and Bombardier as well as the space industry.<\/p>\n
The Garden Grove site, one of 32 manufacturing plants the company has across the world, is part of California\u2019s robust aerospace and defense sector, which directly contributes $35 billion to the state\u2019s annual economic output, according to one estimate<\/a>.<\/p>\n Many of those businesses are based in Southern California. Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and RTX all have substantial operations in the region.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s largely a legacy of the World War II and the Jet Age of the 50s and 60s,\u201d said Richard Aboulafia, a managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory, an aerospace consulting firm. \u201cIt\u2019s even a subplot of \u2018Hail Caesar,\u2019 one of the Coen brothers movies.\u201d<\/p>\n The Garden Grove site was undergoing an expansion to create a new production line, set to be completed in January 2027. According to a city planning document<\/a>, the site, which has been in operation since 2004, sits on about 15.5 acres.<\/p>\n At this facility, plane windows and military aircraft canopies are designed and tested, including some used in commercial jets like the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the company\u2019s website<\/a> states.<\/p>\n In 2018, the company was sold to Melrose Industries, an investment firm that specializes in purchasing struggling businesses and turning them around. GKN Aerospace traces its roots back to the industrial revolution.<\/p>\n Records show the Garden Grove facility has undergone four inspections by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration since 2018. The company was fined $2,550 or less for unknown infractions that have since been fixed.<\/p>\n Industrial accidents, like the potential one at GKN Aerospace, have a destabilizing effect on the aerospace industry, whose supply chain is made up of specialized businesses with few competitors.<\/p>\n A fire last year tore through a<\/a> Pennsylvania factory<\/a> that was a significant source of specialized fasteners, nuts, bolts and other components used in aircraft and engines around the world.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone\u2019s output is dependent upon bottlenecks not happening, and this could be one,\u201d said Mr. Aboulafia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The chemical leak that prompted evacuations in Orange County, Calif., on Friday occurred at a site belonging to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[21193,7,9,8,136582,136581,136580,66265,129098],"class_list":["post-328836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-airlines-and-airplanes","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-factories-and-manufacturing","tag-garden-grove-calif","tag-hazardous-and-toxic-substances","tag-military-aircraft","tag-orange-county-calif"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}