Over the past five years, the US Department of Defense and Lockheed Martin Corporation have lost more than one million spare parts intended for the fifth-generation F-35 fighter, totaling at least $ 85 million. This is reported by Defense News with reference to the report of the Accounting Chamber of the United States.
The auditors noted that the US government does not have its own system for tracking the supply of parts, so federal officials do not know how many spare parts are actually stored for the aircraft. The inspectors do not exclude that significantly more details than one million may be lost.
The publication notes that the loss of details causes disagreements between the US Department of Defense and Lockheed Martin on how to assess the situation that has arisen.
The corporation noted that they are working with the Defense Contract Management Agency to provide documents confirming the disposal of parts that the maintenance staff could consider "superfluous, outdated or unusable."
In the same report, the regulator says that Lockheed Martin may need to carry out an additional overhaul of the engines of the fifth-generation F-35 fighter jets in the coming decades, which will cost $ 38 billion.
