F-35 shock in the USA: '17 thousand parts are not registered in the system!'

GAO published a report on the Pentagon's spare parts records for F-35 warplanes worth billions of dollars.

The report stated that there is a common spare parts inventory in the F-35 program, which is used by the US Air Force and Marine Corps, as well as international users.

The report emphasized that many deficiencies were detected in the inventory management of the program in the inspections carried out since 2019, and stated that "The Ministry of Defense has made little progress in ensuring and maintaining accountability regarding F-35 parts."

The report underlined that the Pentagon's records were "outdated, inaccurate and incomplete."

While there are 26 million spare parts worth approximately 31 billion dollars in the inventory as of March 2026, the report stated that approximately 17 thousand parts, whose value could increase to 2.5 billion dollars, were not recorded in the Pentagon's system, and pointed out that the problems that emerged in previous inspections have not yet been resolved.

The report stated that, according to the report published by GAO in 2023, a main contractor company lost track of more than 1 million F-35 spare parts worth more than 85 million dollars in the 2018-2022 period, and that the status of these parts has not yet been determined.