GAO finds Pentagon cannot account for F-35 parts

The Government Accountability Office reported on November 9 that the Pentagon cannot reliably account for the F-35 programme's roughly 26 million parts, valued at about 31 billion dollars and held at more than 700 facilities, and still does not know the status of lost parts worth over 85 million dollars it first flagged in 2023.

Why it matters: The F-35 is the most expensive weapons programme in US history at more than 1.9 trillion dollars over its life cycle; an auditor finding that its parts records are outdated, inaccurate and incomplete goes to readiness and to whether the Pentagon can ever produce a clean financial statement.

Data as of Report GAO-27-108713, published November 9, 2026, read in full on the GAO site. Figures are the auditor's: about 26 million parts valued at about 31 billion dollars; lost parts valued at over 85 million dollars as reported in 2023, status still unknown as of March 2026. The Department of Defense concurred with all four recommendations, per the report. Single source by construction: the audit is the source of record for its own findings.

The Government Accountability Office’s latest F-35 report, published on November 9, finds that the Department of Defense continues to face basic challenges in accounting for the parts of its most expensive weapons programme. The F-35 inventory comprises approximately 26 million parts, from engines to tires, valued at approximately 31 billion dollars and held at over 700 contractor and government managed facilities around the world. The parts are DOD owned, but DOD does not maintain complete records of them.

GAO found that records in the programme’s accountable property system of record remain unreliable because they do not reflect real time changes and are inaccurate and incomplete, and that the Joint Program Office has not fully developed procedures to validate the data it enters. Physical inventory procedures did not adequately verify the existence of parts or validate their completeness. As of March 2026, the programme office did not know the status of lost F-35 parts valued at over 85 million dollars that GAO had reported on in 2023, and it had not established procedures for reviewing losses reported at government managed facilities.

The report attributes much of this to the absence of a mature property accountability programme: no programme specific procedures and training for the accountable property officers who carry the responsibility. GAO made four recommendations, covering procedures for monitoring loss submissions and trend analysis, programme specific procedures and training for property officers, and a clarified structure for the officer programme. The Department of Defense concurred with all four and cited actions it is taking.

The finding matters beyond bookkeeping. Without accurate inventory data, GAO argues, managers lack the information needed to support warfighter readiness and reliable financial reporting, and the department cannot detect the full extent of loss, fraud, waste or theft. The F-35’s overall life cycle cost is estimated at more than 1.9 trillion dollars. The report was produced in connection with GAO’s statutory mandate to audit the US government’s consolidated financial statements, the audit the Pentagon has never passed, and the F-35 parts problem is one of the standing reasons why.

GAO finds Pentagon cannot account for F-35 parts

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