F-35 Stealth Parts Held in Hong Kong After UPS ITAR Routing Error

Two stealth-coated parts from a Royal Australian Air Force F-35A have been held by Chinese authorities in Hong Kong since late May 2026, after a routing error by parcel carrier UPS sent the shipment through a territory that US arms export rules place off limits. More than four months later, as of October 8, 2026, the parts have not been returned. The Pentagon and the US State Department are still investigating, and Congress is examining how one unread email was enough to defeat the controls that protect the most advanced fighter jet in the US arsenal.

What happened to the shipment

The cargo consisted of a cockpit canopy and a weapons-bay door removed from an Australian F-35A. Both items were classed as unserviceable and were being sent back to the United States for inspection and possible repair or disposal. Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the jet, manages most of the international spare-parts network of the F-35 program and uses commercial logistics companies to move parts. In this case the freight forwarder was Danish group DSV and the carrier was UPS.

According to a Bloomberg report published on October 7, 2026, the planned route ran from Australia to San Francisco through South Korea and Taiwan. DSV had sent UPS an email warning that the parts were covered by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, known as ITAR, and therefore could not pass through certain countries. The UPS employee in charge of the consignment did not see that message, possibly because it arrived in a different IT system from the one the employee was using. The shipment left Australia behind schedule, and after its stop in South Korea it was sent through Hong Kong, a routine hub for Asian air freight, in order to make up time. Chinese authorities took possession of the two parts there and have kept them ever since.

Why two worn-out parts matter

Neither component is a core secret of the aircraft. The Pentagon describes them as unserviceable, and Lockheed Martin told CNN that they were "low risk for exploitation". Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said on September 22, 2026 that the missing items were not sensitive equipment, while leaving the final assessment to Washington and Lockheed Martin.

The concern is the surface of the parts rather than their structure. Both are coated with radar-absorbing material, the layers that help the F-35 stay hard to detect, and US officials cited by Bloomberg describe that material as classified. The canopy also carries a very thin transparent layer that stops radar waves from entering the cockpit. Defense analysts point out that China has spent years trying to obtain F-35 data through espionage, and that holding a real sample is very different from studying stolen design files. Even a used canopy and a used bay door give engineers physical material to test in a laboratory.

How the case became public

The incident stayed out of public view for almost four months. State Department and Pentagon officials began briefing congressional staff in June 2026. Politico revealed the diversion on September 18, and the Hong Kong government answered that it does not comment on individual cases. On September 23, Bloomberg reported that the Chinese government was holding the parts and identified UPS as the carrier. The next day, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said it was "not aware of the situation". The F-35 Joint Program Office, the Pentagon body that runs the program, confirmed a shipment issue involving unserviceable components and said it was working with US authorities and industry partners to retrieve the parts, investigate the incident and add safeguards.

In Congress, the House Armed Services Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee are both examining the case. On September 29, Pentagon officials gave staff of the two committees a closed-door briefing and said new safeguards were being prepared. Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi has written to the Pentagon to ask whether other F-35 parts have been lost or routed through territory controlled by China, and Senator Tom Cotton has called for a review of the F-35 supply chain. UPS has reported the incident to the State Department office that enforces arms export rules, and the State Department says it is investigating. UPS and DSV have not commented publicly on the missed email. Lockheed Martin told Bloomberg that it had no correction to make to that account, and says it is working with its logistics partner on preventive measures.

What is ITAR

ITAR is the set of US rules that decides who may receive American military technology and how that technology may travel. It puts into practice the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 and is run by the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, an office of the State Department. Its purpose is simple: to keep US weapons and the knowledge behind them away from countries and groups that Washington regards as adversaries.

The rules apply to everything named on the US Munitions List, a catalogue of 21 categories that ranges from firearms and ammunition to warships, military aircraft, satellites and night-vision equipment. The list covers three kinds of things: the physical items, the technical data behind them such as blueprints, software and test results, and defense services such as training or repair work.

In practice, ITAR works through three mechanisms. First, any company that makes, exports or brokers defense items must register with the State Department. Second, each export needs a license or an approved agreement that names the item, every company involved, the final user and the destination. Third, the control follows the item for its whole life. A part sold to an allied air force stays under US rules, so it cannot be resold, lent, or sent to a third country without a new approval from Washington. That is why an Australian-owned canopy remains an ITAR item on its way back to the United States, and why a part stays controlled even when it is worn out, until it is formally destroyed.

ITAR also uses a very broad idea of what an export is. Physically moving an item across a border counts, but so does letting it pass through a foreign country in transit, or showing controlled technical data to a foreign national. Every company in the chain can be held responsible, including the freight forwarder and the carrier, and not only the manufacturer.

Why Hong Kong is off limits

ITAR contains a list of prohibited destinations for which licenses are refused as a matter of policy. China is on that list, together with countries such as Russia, Iran and North Korea. Since July 2020, Washington has treated Hong Kong exactly like mainland China for arms exports, which means that ITAR cargo may not be delivered there and may not even change planes there. For this reason, large carriers apply special routing instructions to ITAR shipments so that they avoid these territories. In the F-35 case, that instruction existed but reached UPS in an email instead of being built into the routing system itself.

Penalties for breaking the rules are heavy. A deliberate violation can bring a criminal fine of up to 1 million dollars and up to 20 years in prison for each offence. Civil fines can exceed 1 million dollars per violation, and a company can be banned from exporting defense items altogether. Companies that report their own mistakes usually receive more lenient treatment, which explains why UPS notified the State Department. As a point of comparison, Boeing agreed in 2024 to a 51 million dollar settlement over a series of ITAR violations.

A long-running weakness in F-35 parts tracking

The Hong Kong diversion adds to older concerns about spare-parts control in the F-35 program, whose shared global pool of parts is owned by the Pentagon but tracked by contractors. In 2023, the US Government Accountability Office found that one main contractor had recorded the loss of more than 1 million spare parts worth over 85 million dollars since May 2018, and that the program office had reviewed fewer than 2 percent of those losses. A new report from the same watchdog in June 2026 concluded that the Department of Defense still could not fully account for parts moving through the supply chain, and its earlier recommendations were still open in September 2026.

What comes next

No disruption to F-35 flight operations has been reported. Australia, which operates 72 F-35A jets, is assisting the US investigation and is reviewing its own handling of the shipment. Three questions remain open: whether Beijing will hand the parts back, whether the State Department will impose penalties on the companies involved, and which safeguards the Pentagon will require for future shipments. For any company that moves controlled goods, the case shows that a routing restriction is only reliable when it is locked into the transport system, and not when it depends on someone reading an email.