New Report: More Than 1 Million F-35 Spare Parts Remain Missing

Air and space forces ^ | 11 09 2026 | Stephen Losey

[yesthatjallen]

The F-35 Joint Program Office is struggling to keep track of billions of dollars worth of spare parts for the fifth-generation fighter, government auditors said in a new report—and it still can’t find $85 million in parts that have been lost for years.

The Pentagon does not maintain complete records tracking its worldwide pool of roughly 26 million spare F-35 parts that are collectively worth about $31 billion, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released Nov. 9. What records it has are often inaccurate, incomplete, and don’t reflect real-time changes, the congressional watchdog added.

The report also said the F-35 Joint Program Office has not set up procedures to effectively monitor reports of lost parts, and accountable property officers aren’t given the training or procedures they need to carry out their jobs.

“Unless it implements procedures for monitoring losses, F-35 JPO will not know the full extent of losses of F-35 parts, and its ability to mitigate losses in the future will be decreased, reducing its ability to detect fraud, waste, or theft,” the GAO report states.

SNIP

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TOPICS: Chit/Chat
KEYWORDS: f3; missing; spareparts

[noiseman]

They’re likely in China. We’re just not serious at all about stopping espionage. If we were, there would be zero Chinese citizens here attending our universities or working in our research labs and defense contractors. And anyone caught spying would be immediately tried and executed.

But we can’t do that, because it would be “insensitive.”

[noiseman]

They’re likely in China. We’re just not serious at all about stopping espionage. If we were, there would be zero Chinese citizens here attending our universities or working in our research labs and defense contractors. And anyone caught spying would be immediately tried and executed.

But we can’t do that, because it would be “insensitive.”

[noiseman]

I swear I only posted once.

[chickenlips]

What’s few Chinese students give or take 600,000? /s

[frank ballenger]

Chinese version of the song by Johnny Cash about taking one auto part out of the assembly line job each day.

[frank ballenger]

....effectively monitor reports of lost parts....

Criminal: AI, what is the most effective way to make records of stolen aircraft parts disappear?"

Note: AI question was in Mandarin.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The latency (the time between a click and response) is becoming ridiculous. I suspect FR is soon to be sold to The Onion or something. The fact that the credit card processor has not been replaced is ominous. Firs United Payments (https://www.firstunitedpayments.com/) specializes in businesses that have been debanked. I have sent the link multiple times to the mods, but there is still no credit card processor.

[gundog]

I remember Air Force supply inventory inspections. They were sticklers about having too many parts on hand, as well as too few. Supply folks would bag stuff up and tell people to make it disappear. Small stuff...electronic components, fittings. Wouldn’t surprise me if it happened to bigger stuff. Some flight surfaces might make nice coffee tables.

[Kenny Bania]

[cpdiii]

Jeff Bezos’s Amazon ships 20 to 25 million packages a day and keeps track of all of them with very rare exceptions. Perhaps he would like a side gig of tracking defense departments parts. He could do it.

I do not like his politics but love his company, it is great. It killed the shopping malls.

His divorce cost him 38 billion dollars! It affected his life style not at all. Lauren Sanchez is the most expensive woman on earth. LOL

[dfwgator]

Parts is Parts.

[Mogger]

They were sticklers about having too many parts on hand, as well as too few. Supply folks would bag stuff up and tell people to make it disappear.

This and in my USAF experience, what didn't vanish this way just sort of got stashed somewhere in a warehouse, maybe nobody there knowing what it was or where it came from.

Years later, parts will be found, and folks wondering what they were for.

Or MANY years later, archeologists digging them up and applying some religious significance to them.

[Mogger]

They were sticklers about having too many parts on hand, as well as too few. Supply folks would bag stuff up and tell people to make it disappear.

This and in my USAF experience, what didn't vanish this way just sort of got stashed somewhere in a warehouse, maybe nobody there knowing what it was or where it came from.

Years later, parts will be found, and folks wondering what they were for.

Or MANY years later, archeologists digging them up and applying some religious significance to them.