Sensitive F-35 fighter jet components unexpectedly ended up in Hong Kong this summer after a shipment bound for the United States for repairs was rerouted while travelling across the Pacific from Australia, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The incident has prompted an inquiry on Capitol Hill and raised concerns that China could potentially gain access to key components of the highly classified weapons system.
The Pentagon has confirmed that some components disappeared. The parts were being transported by an intermediary on behalf of F-35 manufacturer Lockheed Martin.
It remains unclear why the shipment was rerouted or who currently has possession of the equipment.
Shipment triggers congressional briefings
The incident, which has not previously been reported, has led to an ongoing series of briefings for congressional staff on key national security committees.
State Department and Pentagon officials first briefed staff in June, according to the people familiar with the matter. Multiple additional briefings are expected in the coming weeks.
The shipment included one of the F-35’s canopies, which covers the cockpit and incorporates stealth technology accessible only to the United States and its allies, according to two of the people.
An adversary possessing one of the canopies could study the component and potentially reverse-engineer aspects of the technology.
The F-35 Joint Program Office said it was “aware of a shipment issue of unserviceable F-35 Lightning II components”.
The office said it was working with US authorities and industry partners “to retrieve these components, investigate the incident, and place safeguards to avoid a future occurrence”.
The shipment’s unexpected diversion to Hong Kong brought the components into a special administrative region of China.
China has tightened its control over Hong Kong in recent years and introduced increasingly strict national security laws that allow Chinese authorities to influence the city’s political system and crack down on dissent.
Concerns over F-35 technology
China has previously engaged in espionage involving secret Pentagon programmes, including the F-35.
“It’s no secret that China has been aggressively trying to get F-35 data through electronic espionage, among other means,” said J.J. Gertler, a former House Armed Services Committee staff member and Congressional Research Service military aviation analyst.
“But even if they already had specifications or other data about the part, possessing a real one can give them even more to go on and can verify or refine whatever they already had learned.”
The F-35 supply chain is a vast global operation that relies on facilities in multiple countries to move and repair components.
Australia has maintenance depots for the aircraft, but none is currently capable of repairing F-35 canopies.
Lockheed Martin manages the programme’s overall supply chain and uses commercial shipping providers to transport parts.
Lockheed said it could not discuss the status of individual shipments for security reasons, but added that it follows all US regulations governing the shipment of aircraft components.
“Our teams handle every shipment with the utmost diligence and safeguards to ensure the integrity of the F-35 programme and the security of our allied partners,” the company said.
The canopy is a critical component of the F-35’s stealth capabilities. It is an acrylic bubble covering the cockpit and coated with a thin layer of transparent radar-absorbent material designed to help conceal the aircraft from enemy radar.
According to the Air Force, the stealth coating can degrade over time, prompting the repair or replacement of canopies among the more than 1,300 fighter jets produced for the United States and its allies.
The State Department declined to comment, while the Chinese Embassy said it was not familiar with the incident.
F-35 supply chain faces scrutiny
The F-35 programme involves the United States and other countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia, Denmark, Norway and Poland.
The programme has a unique system for managing aircraft parts. Participating countries have access to a shared pool of spare components stored around the world, with the Defense Department owning the parts until they are installed on an aircraft.
Although the Defense Department has increased oversight of the F-35 supply chain in recent years, it does not account for spare parts in the shared pool. Lockheed Martin handles that responsibility.
A Government Accountability Office report from 2023 found that more than 1 million F-35 spare parts had gone missing over the previous five years.
The watchdog agency concluded that the Defense Department had been unable to review losses involving spare parts worth tens of millions of dollars because Lockheed controls the relevant information.
“The F-35 Joint Program Office does not track or enter these spare parts into an accountable property system of record that would enable it to capture and store real-time changes to property records,” the report said. “The prime contractors maintain this information.”
Spare parts shortages can leave F-35 aircraft grounded.
While sustainment costs have continued to rise, the F-35 has not met performance goals and its performance “has trended down,” according to a Government Accountability Office report released this year.
The programme is also on track to become the world’s costliest, with the Pentagon expecting to spend almost $2 trillion over its lifetime.
