The Pentagon continues to be struggling to trace thousands and thousands of F-35 spare elements price billions of {dollars} years after authorities watchdogs first uncovered issues with its monitoring system, a brand new report states.
The Authorities Accountability Workplace stated Monday that whereas the DoD’s F-35 program “is the most expensive in its historical past,” the division “struggles to account” for its elements.
The federal government watchdog described the DoD’s information for F-35 elements as “outdated, inaccurate, and incomplete” and stated “DoD has made minimal progress in achieving and sustaining accountability for F-35 elements” since points had been first delivered to mild seven years in the past.
The report follows a number of audits since 2019 by the GAO and the Division of Protection Inspector Basic, which revealed quite a few issues.
Not like most plane, the F-35 program largely depends on a joint pool of spares – reminiscent of engines and tires – for the U.S. Air Drive, Navy and Marine Corps, in addition to worldwide clients.
As of March 2026, this pool comprised roughly 26 million spare elements valued at round $31 billion, the GAO reported. About 17,000 elements – price as much as $2.5 billion – weren’t recorded within the Pentagon’s property and logistics administration platform, the Enterprise Logistics Administration System.
In 2023, the GAO reported that one prime contractor misplaced greater than 1 million F-35 spare elements price greater than $85 million from 2018 to 2022. As of March 2026, the F-35 Joint Program Workplace nonetheless didn’t know the standing of the gadgets.
The F-35 has two prime contractors: Lockheed Martin for the airframe, and Pratt & Whitney for the engines. The U.S. Air Drive awarded Lockheed Martin a $1.6 billion contract for extra spare elements in July.
Points nonetheless plague stock monitoring methods utilized by the F-35 Joint Program Workplace.
“As an illustration, information of F-35 elements within the F-35 program’s accountable property system of document stay unreliable, since they don’t mirror real-time adjustments and are inaccurate and incomplete,” the GAO report states.
Nor can the Enterprise Logistics Administration System observe joint spare elements in real-time “as a result of ELMS doesn’t at the moment interface with the 2 prime contractors’ property administration methods.”
“DoD doesn’t have its personal full information of F-35 elements, and, in consequence, doesn’t know when an element is misplaced except workers on the contractor-managed or government-managed facility identifies and reviews the loss,” Asif Khan, director of GAO’s monetary administration and assurance crew, informed Protection Information.
For joint spares, the F-35 Joint Program Workplace depends on knowledge equipped quarterly by the prime contractors, which signifies that “joint spares pool knowledge in ELMS could also be greater than 3 months outdated.” Whether or not some F-35 spares are literally positioned the place they need to be isn’t all the time clear, partly as a result of the prime contractors aren’t all the time conscious of inventories held by their subcontractors.
Some elements had been additionally valued fairly cheaply within the contract knowledge necessities lists, that are submitted by the prime contractors quarterly.
“Nearly 6 p.c of information of F-35 elements, additionally from the December 2025 CDRL, confirmed an acquisition value of $0.01 or much less, additionally indicating a doable knowledge high quality error,” the GAO famous.
“Neither information of F-35 elements in ELMS nor F-35 JPO’s stock outcomes are dependable for the aim of asset accountability or monetary reporting,” the report states.
Even estimating how lots of the 26 million F-35 elements are lacking is troublesome.
“As a result of the F-35 JPO has not established and applied efficient procedures for monitoring losses, we’re unable to supply an mixture estimate of how lots of the 26 million elements are misplaced,” Khan stated.
The F-35 Joint Program Workplace ought to enhance its procedures for recording misplaced elements, “together with procedures for performing pattern analyses that will allow mitigation of future losses,” the GAO beneficial. The workplace also needs to make extra use of accountable property officers who preserve information of elements, together with particular coaching centered on the F-35 program.
Questions stay about whether or not an incapability to trace spare elements is hampering F-35 operations.
The GAO warned earlier this 12 months that poor elements accountability is complicating efforts to enhance the F-35 program. Clients have additionally been asking for higher transparency into the availability chain to allow them to correctly allocate sources, Khan famous.
“For a number of years, we’ve been reporting that DoD can’t be certain that the prime contractor is offering adequate readiness at an affordable value with out an understanding of the elements it owns and the way the prime contractor manages these elements,” Khan stated.
