Pentagon struggles to track millions of F-35 spare parts: Watchdog

The Pentagon continues to struggle to account for millions of F-35 spare parts worth billions of dollars despite years of warnings, according to a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.

In the report released Monday, the government watchdog described the Pentagon’s spare parts records for the most expensive weapons program in US history as “outdated, inaccurate, and incomplete.”

Audits by the GAO and the Department of Defense’s inspector general have uncovered widespread deficiencies in the program’s inventory management since 2019.

“DoD has made minimal progress in attaining and maintaining accountability for F-35 parts,” since the problems were initially identified seven years ago, the report said.

Unlike conventional military aircraft programs, the F-35 uses a shared spare parts system. Components such as engines and tires are drawn from a common inventory serving the US Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, as well as international operators.

The shared inventory contained roughly 26 million spare parts worth an estimated $31 billion as of March 2026, according to the GAO.

However, approximately 17,000 components valued at up to $2.5 billion were missing from the Pentagon’s Enterprise Logistics Management System, which manages property and logistics records.

The findings also highlight unresolved problems from earlier investigations. In 2023, the GAO reported that a major contractor had lost track of more than 1 million F-35 spare parts valued at over $85 million between 2018 and 2022. As of March 2026, the F-35 Joint Program Office had yet to determine the status of those components.

Lockheed Martin, which manufactures the aircraft’s airframe, and Pratt & Whitney, which produces its engines, are the program’s two main contractors.

In July 2026, the Pentagon awarded Lockheed Martin a $1.6 billion contract to supply additional spare parts.

The GAO said the Pentagon’s Enterprise Logistics Management System could not track the shared inventory in real time because it was not integrated with the contractors’ property management systems.

The watchdog also identified questionable acquisition costs in the records, with almost 6% of entries in a December 2025 dataset listing F-35 parts at $0.01 or less – a possible indication of data errors.

“Neither records of F-35 parts in ELMS nor F-35 JPO’s inventory results are reliable for the purpose of asset accountability or financial reporting,” the report stated