The Australian Department of Defence is examining how components for the F-35 fighter jet, originally bound for the United States, were unexpectedly diverted to Hong Kong and have remained unaccounted for months later.
Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles said the department was reviewing “very much everything that has occurred at the Australian end” of the incident. He nevertheless argued that the parts were not “sensitive”, despite reports that the shipment may have included a canopy associated with the aircraft’s stealth capabilities.
The components were being carried by an unidentified third party on behalf of Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer. Their last confirmed location was Hong Kong, China’s special administrative region, raising questions about whether classified technology could have been accessed or copied.
A shipment that should have gone to the US
The diversion was described as unplanned. According to Politico, which first reported the story over the weekend, the shipment included one of the jet’s canopies, reportedly incorporating stealth technology.
That account sits uneasily with Marles’s public assessment. Speaking on Tuesday, he said: “My understanding is that there is a sense of comfort, and we’re not talking about sensitive equipment here, or sensitive parts.”
He added: “Ultimately, though, this is an issue which is going to be managed by the United States and by Lockheed in terms of what has occurred.”
The US Department of War and the F-35 Joint Program Office confirmed that they were aware of the “shipment issue”. A spokesperson said: “We are actively working with US authorities and industry partners to retrieve these components, investigate the incident, and place safeguards to avoid a future occurrence.”
It remains unclear whether the components were inspected, removed, copied or otherwise compromised. The fact that they are still unaccounted for means the investigation is likely to focus not only on where the shipment went wrong, but also on what information may have been exposed.
Why Hong Kong raises the stakes
Michael Shoebridge, a director at Strategic Analysis Australia who has worked in intelligence agencies, said there are two obvious reasons why China, or another adversary, might want F-35 components: to reverse-engineer them, or to learn how to better exploit and attack them.
He described the Hong Kong stop as “such an unexpectedly stupid thing” for either Lockheed Martin or Australia to permit. “This is an act of incredible ineptitude and stupidity, and so it’s more the Chinese taking advantage of an incredible stroke of luck brought to them by the stupidity of the people involved,” he said.
The incident has broader significance because the F-35 is not simply a collection of aircraft assembled in one country. Its development, production, sustainment and supply chain are distributed across several allied partners, making the programme dependent on tightly controlled movement of specialised components.
For European governments that participate in advanced defence-industrial partnerships, the episode is a reminder that security does not end at the factory gate. A component can pass through multiple contractors, carriers and jurisdictions before reaching its destination, and a failure in one link can affect trust across the entire programme.
Shoebridge warned that the consequences could extend well beyond the missing shipment. “They’re all now carrying the risk of whatever vulnerabilities this has brought to the aircraft,” he said. “So it’s not just a US-Australia issue. It’s every operator of the F-35 program [that] has an interest in understanding what happened and what was potentially exposed.”
Australia’s deep industrial stake
Australia was among the F-35 programme’s early development partners. The programme spreads the fighter jet’s development, supply, management and sustainment across different countries, with Australian industry playing a substantial role.
More than 70 Australian companies hold production and sustainment contracts connected with the F-35. In excess of 700 of the aircraft’s “critical pieces” are manufactured in Victoria alone, according to the state government. Australia also hosts a regional distribution hub for F-35 parts in New South Wales.
As of September 2025, Australian companies involved in the programme’s supply chain had been awarded contracts valued at more than $5.2bn. That industrial footprint makes the incident particularly sensitive for Canberra, even if the Australian department says its own role was limited.
The controversy also emerges against a wider backdrop of concern about technology transfer to China. Last week, the US State Department announced that the Trump administration would continue with the sale of 48 F-35s to Saudi Arabia,
