Auditors: Over 1 million F-35 spare parts lost by DoD and Lockheed
By Stephen Losey
Tuesday, May 30
The Government Accountability Office found that more than 1 million spare parts worth at least $85 million have been lost in a report sharply critical of how such components are tracked. (Trevor Cokley/Air Force)
WASHINGTON — More than 1 million F-35 spare parts worth at least $85 million have gone missing over at least the last five years, according to a new Government Accountability Office report criticizing the program’s supply tracking.
Auditors said that because the government doesn’t have its own system tracking those parts, officials may not truly know how many spare parts are actually in the global spares pool, where they are, or their total value.
As a result, “the full quantity and value of these [lost] spare parts may be significantly higher” than the 1 million tally determined by the main contractor, Lockheed Martin, the document reads.
And disagreements between Defense Department offices and the main F-35 contractor, Lockheed Martin, over how to categorize missing parts are holding up the government’s effort to create its own reliable system to keep track of the parts, the GAO report states.
In short, the F-35 program can’t know whether contractors are properly managing spares, according to auditors, who have tracked losses going to back to 2018.
https://www.navytimes.com/air/2023/05/30/auditors-over-1-million-f-35-spare-parts-lost-by-dod-and-lockheed/
