GAO: Pentagon cannot account for 17,000 F-35 spare parts worth $2.5 billion

A Government Accountability Office report says the Defense Department still cannot reliably track the F-35 spare parts pool, which held about 26 million items worth roughly $31 billion as of March 2026. The watchdog found about 17,000 parts, valued up to $2.5 billion, were not recorded in the Enterprise Logistics Management System. The F-35 Joint Program Office also failed to establish effective procedures for monitoring losses, leaving it unable to estimate how many of the 26 million parts are missing.

The evidence trail runs back to audits in 2019 by GAO and the Defense Department inspector general. A 2023 report said one prime contractor lost more than 1 million parts worth over $85 million between 2018 and 2022, and the Joint Program Office still did not know their status in March 2026. GAO found ELMS does not interface with Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney property systems, so joint spare data can be more than three months old. Almost 6 percent of December 2025 records showed acquisition costs of $0.01 or less.

This matters because the F-35's shared spare pool is central to the program's promised efficiency across the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and allies. If accountability depends on quarterly contractor data, the Pentagon cannot know in near real time whether jets are grounded for want of parts, whether losses are routine, or whether $31 billion of assets are truly controlled. Against a $1.7 trillion defense budget, the gap between spending and basic inventory discipline weakens the business case for a program whose sustainment cost has long exceeded its airframe price.

The next test is whether the Joint Program Office can force real-time data interfaces with Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney, and whether Congress treats the recurring audit failures as a funding condition rather than a footnote. GAO recommends better loss recording, trend analysis and mitigation. Until ELMS reflects actual movement instead of quarterly snapshots, every future report will likely repeat the same finding: the department knows the F-35 is expensive, but still cannot prove where its parts are.