A shipment of parts for American F-35 fighter jets en route from Australia to the United States was mistakenly sent to Hong Kong, three sources told Politico. Why the route was changed and who now has the secret components of fifth-generation multi-role fighters is unknown. Sources fear that sensitive elements could have ended up in the hands of Chinese specialists.
The cargo was en route from Australia to the United States for repairs. The transportation was handled by an unnamed contractor working with manufacturer Lockheed Martin. During transportation across the Pacific Ocean, the cargo was diverted to Hong Kong for an unknown reason.
State Department and Pentagon officials briefed congressional staff about the incident in June. A Pentagon spokesman told Politico that the military is working with U.S. officials and industry to “recover the components, investigate the incident, and take steps to prevent similar incidents in the future.”
Among the missing parts, only the F-35 Lightning II canopy is named, which is a transparent acrylic structure above the pilot's seat. It is coated with a thin layer of transparent radar-absorbing material, which helps make the aircraft less visible to enemy radar. According to Politico, only the United States and its allies have access to this technology.
Having received such a component, a third party could study its design in detail and try to reproduce the technology using reverse engineering, the publication writes.
“It’s no secret that China is actively trying to obtain data on the F-35, including through electronic intelligence. But even if they already had specifications or other information about the part, having a real-life sample can give them much more and allow them to confirm or clarify what they were already able to find out,” said JJ Gertler, a former staffer of the House Armed Services Committee.
It is noted that the F-35 supply chain includes facilities in different countries for storing, transporting and repairing components. In addition to the USA and Australia, the program includes, inter alia, the UK, Denmark, Norway and Poland. Participating countries have access to a common stock of spare parts located in different parts of the world, and their records are maintained not by the US Department of Defense, but by Lockheed Martin.
A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released in 2023 found that more than 1 million F-35 spare parts were lost in just five years.
“Since May 2018, one of the F-35 program prime contractors has lost more than 1 million spare parts with a total value of over $85 million. However, the F-35 Joint Program Office has verified less than 2% of these cases. In addition, due to the lack of an established reporting process, as of October 2022, the same contractor had not reported to the F-35 program office the loss of more than 900,000 spare parts valued at over $66 million,” the report states.
