Australia says F-35 parts diverted to Hong Kong believed not sensitive

Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles said on September 22, 2026, that F-35 components diverted from Australia to Hong Kong were not believed to be sensitive, as Canberra assists the United States and Lockheed Martin in investigating the shipment. 

“We are examining very much everything that has occurred at the Australian end,” Marles told reporters in Adelaide, in comments reported by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “My understanding is that there is a sense of comfort, that we’re not talking about sensitive equipment here, or sensitive parts.” 

He added that the matter would ultimately be managed by the US and Lockheed Martin, the F-35 prime contractor. 

Marles was responding to a September 18, 2026, report by Politico, which said a shipment of F-35 parts bound for repair in the US was rerouted to Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China.  

Citing three people familiar with the matter, Politico reported that the consignment included a cockpit canopy, which carries a transparent radar-absorbent coating, and that an intermediary was moving the parts for Lockheed Martin. 

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Pentagon seeks to recover diverted F-35 components 

A Royal Australian Air Force F-35A Lightning II outside BAE Systems Australia’s maintenance facility at Williamtown. (Credit: Australian Department of Defence)The Pentagon’s F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) said it was aware of a shipment issue involving unserviceable F-35 components and was working with US authorities and industry partners “to retrieve these components, investigate the incident, and place safeguards to avoid a future occurrence.” 

Lockheed Martin said it could not discuss specific shipments for security reasons. “Our teams handle every shipment with the utmost diligence and safeguards to ensure the integrity of the F-35 program and the security of our allied partners,” the company said. 

House Armed Services Committee spokesperson Heather Vaughan told Bloomberg on September 21, 2026, that the committee had received “multiple briefings” and was continuing its oversight. 

The case lands in a program long scrutinized over Chinese access, from the 2022 delivery suspension over a Chinese-made alloy to the prosecution of a retired US Air Force pilot accused of briefing Chinese aviators on the F-35 and intelligence warnings over the proposed Saudi F-35 sale. 

F-35 spare parts tracking remains an unresolved Pentagon problem 

Australia completed its 72-aircraft F-35A fleet in December 2024 and hosts a regional F-35 spare parts hub at Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Base Williamtown, north of Newcastle. It is not known whether the shipment originated there. 

Program participants draw on a common global pool of spare parts owned by the US Department of Defense and managed by prime contractors. The inventory is distributed across more than 50 facilities worldwide, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report published on May 23, 2023. 

That report found that one prime contractor had recorded losses of more than 1 million spare parts worth over $85 million since May 2018, of which the JPO had reviewed less than 2%. 

As of September 2026, the GAO still lists all four recommendations from that report as open, with the Pentagon yet to fully resolve accountability and reporting procedures for the global spares pool.The post Australia says F-35 parts diverted to Hong Kong believed not sensitive appeared first on AeroTime.

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