GAO says DOD needs stronger oversight of F-35 parts

The Government Accountability Office announcement was published Monday 09 November 2026. GAO said the Department of Defense continued to face challenges in accounting for F-35 parts, including engines and tires.

The F-35 program included approximately 26 million F-35 parts, valued at approximately $31 billion and held at over 700 contractor- and government-managed facilities around the world. The parts were DOD-owned, but DOD did not maintain complete records of them.

GAO found that DOD had not established procedures ensuring its records were sufficient to account for and financially report on the parts. Records in the F-35 program’s accountable property system of record remained unreliable because they did not reflect real-time changes and were inaccurate and incomplete.

The F-35 Joint Program Office had not fully developed procedures to validate the accuracy of data entered into the accountable property system of record. Its physical inventory procedures also did not adequately verify the existence and completeness of F-35 parts.

As of March 2026, the F-35 Joint Program Office did not know the status of lost F-35 parts valued at over $85 million that GAO reported on in 2023. The office had not established procedures for effectively reviewing losses reported at government-managed facilities.

GAO also found that the F-35 Joint Program Office had not established a mature, fully functioning property accountability program with program-specific procedures and training. The findings affected asset accountability, warfighter readiness and financial reporting. Overall costs for the F-35 program were estimated at more than $1.9 trillion over its life cycle.