Thursday, December 25, 2025
F-35 Hits New Low: 8th Pentagon Audit Failure Tied To Stealth Jet’s 238-Day Delays & Unaccounted Spares
By Prakash Nanda
-December 24, 2025
The mandarins at Lockheed Martin may not celebrate Christmas and New Year’s Eve with traditional fervor now that its much celebrated F-35 fighter aircraft has failed again to impress the financial auditors of the U.S Department of Defense (now Department of War under the Trump Administration), who have released their latest report last week (December 19).
This comes three months after the U.S. Government Accounts Office (GAO), in its report, made public on September 03, found out how the F-35 was struggling with reliability, costs, and political baggage, and how the nations across Europe and Asia, as a result, were turning to alternate proven, battle-tested platforms like the Eurofighter Typhoon, Rafael and Gripen, apart from investing in their collective efforts to develop new fighters like the ambitious Future Combat Air System (FCAS with Germany, France and Spain as partners) and the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP with the UK, Japan and Italy as participants).
Apparently, the GAO’s September report had found that most F-35s delivered in 2023 by contractor Lockheed Martin and engine maker Pratt & Whitney were late, arriving an average of 61 days behind schedule.
In 2024, the problem worsened markedly: every F-35 delivered was late, with an average delay of 238 days.
The report attributed the bulk of the delays to the Technology Refresh 3, or TR-3 — a suite of hardware and software upgrades that form the foundation of the $2 billion “Block 4 modernization” effort. That program is also now expected to cost about $6 billion more than planned and be finished at least five years later than initially projected.
The GAO report said that the US Department of Defense has paid millions of dollars in incentive fees to contractors to improve on-time delivery.
“However, the structure of on-time delivery incentives allowed the contractor to deliver aircraft up to 60 days late and still earn some of the fee,” the watchdog agency said.
The GAO report made it clear that the F-35’s acquisition costs, including development and procurement, have grown to more than $485 billion as of December 2023. That’s a nearly 10% increase from the December 2022 estimate of $442 billion, and more than double its original baseline cost from 2001.
Those costs are also $89.5 billion higher than projected in 2012. In fact, the F-35’s lifetime cost, including sustainment costs, is now more than $2 trillion.
It is against this background that last week’s financial audit conclusion, failing the Pentagon for the eighth consecutive year (since the U.S. Congress mandated annual reviews beginning in 2018), is all the more noteworthy.
Among 26 material weaknesses and two significant deficiencies in the department’s controls for financial reporting in fiscal 2025 that the report identified, the one on the F-35 “Joint Strike Fighter Program) was striking.
According to the report, the department did not report the program’s assets in the global spares pool, resulting in “a misstatement.”
It said, “Because the DoD is unable to provide or obtain accurate and reliable data to verify the existence, completeness, or value of its Global Spares Pool assets for the Joint Strike Fighter(JSF) Program, we could not quantify the material misstatement in the DoD’s assets on the Agency-Wide Financial Statements”. This resulted in “a material misstatement on the Agency-Wide Financial Statements”, it added.
It may be noted that the JSF program is a joint effort among nine countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Australia, Denmark, Norway), each planning to purchase a certain number of aircraft from the program.
In July 2019, the United States removed Turkey from the list of allies after its acquisition of the Russian S-400 missile system. Turkey had initially planned to buy approximately 100 JSFs through the program.
The JSF program is managed by a Joint Program Office (JPO) of more than 2,200 personnel worldwide for international partners and foreign military sales customers.
The JPO oversees development of three different variants: the F-35A for the Air Force, the F-35B for the Marine Corps, and the F-35C for the Navy and Marine Corps.
And it is the JPO that is upgrading the aircraft in order to remain relevant against future threats, such as advanced fighter aircraft, uncrewed aircraft, or long-range surface-to-air missiles.
However, reports suggest that the JSF program has been slow due to a combination of its immense technological complexity, the goal of producing three highly distinct aircraft variants from a single design, significant supply chain and manufacturing issues, and persistent software development problems.
It is said that the F-35 is one of the most technologically sophisticated weapons platforms ever developed, pushing the boundaries of engineering with integrated stealth technology, advanced sensors, and complex avionics. Integrating these numerous new systems requires years of prototyping, simulation, and iterative testing.
Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer (3L) and Britain’s Defence Secretary John Healey (3R) stand in front of an Royal Navy F-35B Lightning fighter jet as they talk with Royal Navy Vice Admiral Andrew Burns (L), Commodore James Blackmore, Captain Will Blackett (R) and Air Wing Commander Captain Colin McGannity (obscured) on the flight deck of the British aircraft carrier HMS Prince Of Wales, in an undisclosed location, on April 24, 2025, following its deployment to the Indo-Pacific region. (Photo by Richard Pohle / POOL / AFP)
Secondly, a core challenge has been designing a single aircraft frame to serve three distinct military needs: conventional takeoff (F-35A), short takeoff/vertical landing (F-35B for the Marine Corps), and carrier-based operations (F-35C for the Navy).
This has created immense design complexity and required compromises that introduced unique technical challenges for each variant.
Thirdly, software development has also been cited as a major obstacle. The current Technology Refresh 3 (TR-3) hardware and software upgrade, which is critical for the “Block 4 capabilities, has faced repeated delays due to stability issues and supply chain problems.
Fourthly, the program has consistently faced issues with contractors delivering engines and aircraft late due to manufacturing problems and parts shortages. At times, dozens of jets have been pulled from the production line and stored due to missing components.
Fifthly, the program has now been viewed as the most expensive weapon system in U.S. history, with operating costs exceeding $1 trillion. In fact, rising costs and limited annual funding have led the Pentagon to intentionally slow production at times to better manage risks and budgets, which in turn extends the overall timeline.
All these compounding issues, resulting in significant schedule slips and cost increases, seem to have created significant openings for rival fighter jets in the global market. Saab Gripen (Sweden) has capitalized on F-35 delivery and cost concerns.
In 2025, Colombia and Thailand ordered Gripen E/F fighters over F-16s. Switzerland and Canada are also re-evaluating their commitments, considering the Gripen to fill gaps caused by F-35 budget caps and concerns about industrial benefits.
Facing strong political pressure and potential cancellation of its $9 billion order due to Trump-era tariffs and trade disputes, lawmakers in Switzerland are reportedly pushing to review the deal.
Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney is reportedly weighing whether to proceed with its planned fleet of 88 F-35s from Lockheed Martin or diversify toward a mixed fleet that could include Saab’s Gripen E.
Following his re-election, Carney has advocated for greater “diversification” in Ottawa’s defense and industrial partnerships. That stance was underscored by a new defense and trade cooperation framework signed with the European Union in June 2025.
Dassault Rafale (France) is succeeding in finding customers, with its latest major agreement being the 26 Rafale-Marine jets for the Indian Navy.
Even the closest American partner, the UK, is debating whether to increase Eurofighter production rather than pursue further F-35 acquisitions to protect domestic industrial bases.
Countries like Spain have formally cancelled F-35 plans in favour of European alternatives (Eurofighter/FCAS). Portugal has also shown wavering interest, highlighting broader international reconsideration of the costly F-35 program amidst geopolitical and economic tensions.
Here, of course, tariffs imposed by the Trump administration have created further complications, making American jets less attractive than European options. A shift away from the U.S., particularly in Europe, is now affecting defense procurement choices.
A push for greater self-reliance and European defense cooperation is also influencing decisions, favoring joint European projects such as FCAS and GCAP.
Author and veteran journalist Prakash Nanda is Chairman of the Editorial Board of the EurAsian Times and has been commenting on politics, foreign policy, and strategic affairs for nearly three decades. He is a former National Fellow of the Indian Council for Historical Research and a recipient of the Seoul Peace Prize Scholarship.
