When a potentially catastrophic chemical crisis unfolded at a GKN Aerospace manufacturing plant in Garden Grove, California, earlier this month, it displaced some 50,000 Orange County residents for six days. Meanwhile, the emergency has also made GKN Aerospace a household name in Orange County, where working-class migrant communities are largely bearing the cost.\u00a0<\/p>\n
GKN Aerospace is a little-known but prolific supplier of parts for military aircraft, missiles, and drones.<\/p>\n
On May 21, Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA) reported that a tank holding 7,000 gallons of methyl methacrylate (MMA), a highly volatile compound used to make acrylic plastics \u2014 would either spill out or explode. The type of disaster OCFA braced for was a BLEVE \u2014 a boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion capable of creating a fireball hundreds of feet around and hundreds of feet high, scattering the volatile compound and tons of flaming shrapnel for miles.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After a tense weekend of manually cooling down the outside of the tank with water, OCFA found a crack in the tank that was relieving the pressure inside. BLEVE averted, all evacuation orders for the nine square miles around GKN were lifted on May 26, six days after they began.<\/p>\n
MMA harms respiratory and nervous systems and can be lethal at high doses.<\/p>\n
The South Coast Air Quality Management District started monitoring on May 22 and said the air quality was \u201ccompletely normal.\u201d The EPA concurred. Experts have said it\u2019s improbable<\/a> there is no contamination with a crack in the tank.\u00a0<\/p>\n For John Nonato, it was hard to believe officials after a weekend of contradictory messages and inadequate aid. He helped organize a town hall in nearby Irvine, where it was unanimous: Attendees want GKN Aerospace and other military contractors out of their neighborhoods.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nonato, unlike many, already knew who GKN was. As an organizer with Bayan SoCal, a youth movement for national democracy in the Philippines, Nonato spoke about GKN\u2019s footprint in the Philippines and the layers of crises that produced the disaster in Garden Grove.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nonato said the company endangered thousands of residents, including children at 12 schools in the potential blast radius, and is \u201ctrying to squeeze out as much profit as it can.\u201d<\/p>\n In response to Inkstick\u2019s request for comment, GKN replied with a press release it had already published in the wake of the incident. \u201cOn behalf of the team at GKN Aerospace, I want to say how sorry we are for the uncertainty and disruption this situation has caused,\u201d its senior VP said in the statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jamie Camacho, an organizer with Kabaatan Alliance, said people are still feeling sick and smelling MMA. It has a distinct, fruity odor.\u00a0<\/p>\n Explaining that she saw scores of young children and families at evacuation shelters, Camacho said she\u00a0 worries about their health and wonders if their lives will be shortened by long-term exposure to chemicals used to manufacture weapons.<\/p>\n \u201cOften those weapons are used for war in the countries where a lot of the families in the area came from,\u201d Camacho added. \u201cOur home countries are no strangers to military violence. To see that impact still haunt migrant communities is infuriating.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n GKN subcontracts for defense stalwarts like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, and General Atomics. It makes parts for fighter planes, combat helicopters, Patriot missiles<\/a>, and MQ-9B Predator drones<\/a> that are used by the US and exported around the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n The site in Garden Grove makes canopies for Lockheed Martin\u2019s F-35 stealth fighter jets. Israel and the US have used these aircraft throughout the Gaza genocide,, with bombardments and targeted killings of Palestinians in the Strip.<\/p>\n GKN also builds parts for the F-15<\/a>, F-16<\/a>, and the Apache AH-64<\/a>, all of which Israel has used for more than 20 years\u00a0 in conflicts with high civilian death tolls in Palestine and Lebanon. GKN isn\u2019t just along for the ride, either. GKN sold weapons to Israel directly<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Palestinian Youth Movement OC chapter launched a campaign to expel GKN from Garden Grove, and took their demands to the city council on May 26. They want the GKN site shut down and for a city moratorium on new military manufacturing facilities and permits for existing sites.<\/p>\n \u201cWe demand an immediate end to the use of our tax dollars, our public land and our public infrastructure to manufacture, to store or transport the weapons that make this genocide possible,\u201d one speaker said. \u201cGKN is not fit to exist in our community due to their role in waging war in every corner of the globe.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n There were a few council members who considered a limited moratorium but other members pushed to table the discussion for later.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know you\u2019re all mobilizing for moratoriums and other things,\u201d council memberJoe DoVinh said. \u201cWe can think globally but we have to act locally.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The crisis in Garden Grove comes at a prosperous time for the company. \u201cGeopolitical tensions and conflict [are] driving a significant increase in military spending commitments\u201d in Europe and the US, GKN\u2019s parent company said in February. \u201cWe are well placed to benefit\u201d from this \u201cgenerational shift in defense spending.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n It made \u00a33.6 billion (more than $4.8 billion) in 2025, a 23% increase in operational profit from the previous year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Melrose Industries bought GKN in a hostile takeover in 2018<\/a>, laid off hundreds of employees, and closed 20 manufacturing sites. The Labour Party called the company a \u201cshort-termist asset-stripper<\/a>.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n The \u201clean operating model\u201d that the company credits to its success coincided with multiple labor and environmental violations in Garden Grove. GKN paid the South Coast Air Quality Monitoring Division nearly $1 million<\/a> in fines for violations in 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n Erica Gonzalez, an Orange County resident who works for OC Environmental Justice, told Inkstick she had spent the weekend in shelters speaking with evacuees. Some have told Gonzalez that their symptoms of MMA exposure started a day before GKN actually reported the leak.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Gonzalez has seen this happen before in her own community, Santa Ana, where Cherry Aerospace contaminated Delhi, a working-class neighborhood.\u00a0<\/p>\n That\u2019s why Gonzalez thinks local organizations mobilized so quickly \u2014 cities across Orange County have had their own battles with military contractors. \u201cYou end up getting all these residential areas right next to all these industrial manufacturers through years of systemic racism and red-lining,\u201d Gonzalez said. \u201cWe need to make sure that the folks that are responsible for this leak are held accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Trump administration\u2019s proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget may not, in fact, discipline the defense industrial base.<\/p>\n Last year, GKN announced Garden Grove would have a new $150 million F-35 canopy production line and double its output. GKN said the US government is funding the expansion. Construction is underway and its expected completion is next year.<\/p>\n But the DOD\u2019s most costly weapons system has had a serious problem with its canopies. In 2019, the Government Accountability Office reported that the \u201cspecial coating on the F-35 canopy that enables the aircraft to maintain its stealth failed more frequently than expected\u201d and GKN \u201ccould not produce enough canopies to meet demands.\u201d The GAO referenced the canopy issues as recently as 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n The canopy designed to keep the F-35 undetectable by radar tended to delaminate, exposing the jet and making it possible, for instance, for a country the US attacked to shoot it out of the sky.\u00a0<\/p>\n There may be pressure from the Pentagon to fill orders and meet deadlines, but it is felt most on the workfloor. In its own words, Lockheed is \u201caccelerating production to meet growing demand<\/a>.\u201d Its CEO called the DOD\u2019s approach to contracting and the US and Israel war on Iran a \u201cgolden opportunity.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n