From Business Insider · Chris Panella · · 1m 50s
Pentagon can't track $31 billion in F-35 parts
The Defense Department owns 26 million F-35 stealth fighter parts worth $31 billion but struggles to account for them, a government watchdog found.
In brief
The Defense Department owns 26 million F-35 stealth fighter parts worth $31 billion but struggles to account for them, a government watchdog found. The Pentagon cannot reliably track F-35 parts worth $31 billion across 700 facilities, the Government Accountability Office reported, hampering military readiness…
Pentagon loses track of fighter parts
The US Department of Defense cannot reliably track F-35 stealth fighter parts, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Monday.
Massive inventory problem identified
As of March 2026, the F-35 Joint Program Office did not know the status of over one million parts worth over eighty-five million dollars that the GAO had flagged in 2023.
Scale of the parts stockpile
The Pentagon owns roughly twenty-six million F-35 parts worth an estimated thirty-one billion dollars, spread across over seven hundred government and contractor-managed facilities.
System failures at the root
The Enterprise Logistics Management System is unreliable because it pulls data from multiple sources and isn't updated for real-time changes. It cannot connect directly to contractor systems.
Missing maintenance records
As of March 2026, roughly seventeen thousand parts worth about one point three billion dollars undergoing maintenance or repair were not entered into the official system.
Spending without results
Since 2020, the F-35 Joint Program Office spent at least seventeen million dollars conducting physical inventories at contractor and government facilities, but problems persist.
Readiness already declining
The mission-capable rate for F-35 aircraft fell from sixty-seven percent to forty-four percent between fiscal years 2021 and 2025. The full mission-capable rate dropped from thirty-eight percent to twenty-five percent.
Pentagon commits to fixing tracking
The Department of Defense concurred with GAO recommendations and is developing program-specific procedures and training for Accountable Property Officers to improve parts accountability.
“The JPO is actively developing program-specific procedures and tailored training for Accountable Property Officers, alongside a detailed plan to define and structure the APO program.”
The bottom line
The Pentagon cannot reliably track F-35 parts worth $31 billion across 700 facilities, the Government Accountability Office reported, hampering military readiness.
