Pentagon Blocks GAO's Annual F-35 Report for First Time in 20 Years
Summary
The Government Accountability Office -- Congress's own auditor -- has published an unclassified public review of the F-35 fighter jet program every year since Congress mandated it in 2005. In June 2026 the Pentagon reviewed that year's report and marked the entire thing Controlled Unclassified Information, the first time in more than two decades any of GAO's F-35 acquisition reviews has been withheld from the public in full. It happened days after GAO's own separate, still-public sustainment report found F-35 readiness at its lowest point on record and a $13.7 billion overrun on the plan meant to fix it.
What GAO's own numbers show, while they're still public
The blocked report covers F-35 acquisition and production. A separate report on F-35 sustainment -- GAO-26-108113⧉, published June 11, 2026, two weeks before the blocked report's June 25 date -- was not restricted, and it shows why the timing matters. Between fiscal 2021 and fiscal 2025, the fleet's mission capable rate (the share of time an aircraft can fly at least one of its assigned missions) fell from 67% to 44%; the stricter full mission capable rate (able to fly every assigned mission) fell from 38% to 25%. 's response, a sustainment overhaul it calls the Global Support Solution Reset, will cost $13.7 billion more than the department had already planned to spend through fiscal 2031 -- on top of lifetime U.S. sustainment costs already estimated at $1.6 trillion, as of 2024, for a fleet of over 800 jets plans to more than double by the mid-2040s.
View data as table
| Mission capable, FY2021 | 67% | Aircraft can perform at least one tasked mission |
|---|---|---|
| Mission capable, FY2025 | 44% | Down 23 points in four years |
| Full mission capable, FY2021 | 38% | Aircraft can perform every tasked mission |
| Full mission capable, FY2025 | 25% | Down 13 points in four years |
Why the paper matters as much as the plane
The same sustainment report also found that the incentive fees the F-35 Joint Program Office pays Lockheed Martin -- ranging from millions to hundreds of millions of dollars for hitting sustainment targets -- have "consistently not incentivized the achievement of and U.S. military service readiness requirements," one of 46 recommendations has made on the program since 2014 that the Pentagon has been expected, but not required, to act on. That is the baseline the blocked report broke from: a program has been able to check in public, year over year, specifically so Congress and taxpayers did not have to take 's word for how a $1.6 trillion program was performing. GAO's own statement, attributed to Jon Ludwigson, the agency's director for contracting and national security acquisitions, put it plainly: "This is the first year that any of our acquisition reviews has been determined to contain CUI and be restricted from public release."
Only four congressional committees -- House and Senate Armed Services, and the House and Senate Appropriations defense subcommittees -- received the full blocked report; no one else in Congress, and no member of the public, has seen what it says. has not publicly explained why this year's report specifically was found to contain CUI when 20 years of prior reports on the same program were not, and reporters who asked were told the department had no comment. That leaves the CUI marking itself unverified against the document it covers -- this piece can confirm the block happened and describe what 's other, public F-35 work shows about the program at the same moment, not what the withheld report itself says.
- The Pentagon marked 's June 25, 2026 F-35 acquisition report Controlled Unclassified Information -- the first time in 's 20-plus years of annual F-35 reviews, mandated since 2005, that one has been withheld from the public in full.
- It happened two weeks after 's own public sustainment report (-26-108113, June 11, 2026) found F-35 full mission capable rates had fallen from 38% to 25% between fiscal 2021 and 2025, and that fixing it will cost $13.7 billion more than planned through fiscal 2031.
- Only four congressional defense committees received the full blocked report; has not explained the CUI designation and declined to comment to reporters.
- has made 46 recommendations on F-35 operations and sustainment since 2014; the same June 2026 report found the Pentagon's contractor incentive fees have 'consistently not incentivized' the readiness improvements they were meant to reward.
Sources(3) ▾
- U.S. Government Accountability Office, F-35 Sustainment: Actions Needed to Ensure Updated Strategy Improves Persistent Readiness Challenges (GAO-26-108113) (2026-06-11) — 's own June 11, 2026 public report to the Senate and House Armed Services Committees on F-35 sustainment -- the report that stayed public even as a separate, later acquisition report on the same program was blocked in full. Supplies every readiness-rate, cost, and contractor-incentive figure in this piece: the fiscal 2021-2025 mission-capable and full-mission-capable rate decline (Highlights, p. 2), the $1.6 trillion lifetime sustainment cost estimate and 46 open recommendations since 2014 (Letter, p. 1), the $13.7 billion Global Support Solution Reset cost and >$1 billion annual affordability gap (Highlights, p. 2), and the incentive-fee structure found 'has consistently not effectively incentivized' Lockheed Martin's sustainment performance (p. 29). gao.gov · original document
- Forbes, Pentagon Barred Release Of Watchdog's F-35 Report To The Public (2026-07-15) — Reports the Pentagon's Controlled Unclassified Information designation on 's annual F-35 acquisition report, names the report's public title, quotes 's Office of Public Affairs on the review process, and lists the four congressional defense committees that still received the full report. forbes.com · original document
- South China Morning Post, Pentagon blocks review of F-35 fighter jet project for first time in over 20 years (2026-07-15) — Carries the on-record statement -- attributed to Jon Ludwigson, the director for contracting and national security acquisitions -- that this is the first of 's annual F-35 acquisition reviews, covered every year since Congress mandated them in 2005, to be withheld from the public in full. Also gives the blocked report's June 25, 2026 date. Archive.org's Save Page Now service returned repeated 520 errors on capture attempts (2026-07-16); no Wayback snapshot exists yet, so this citation carries no one-click capture -- reachable directly at the url above. scmp.com
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The Government Accountability Office -- the nonpartisan agency Congress created to audit how the executive branch spends public money, and whose recommendations agencies are expected to answer -- has reviewed the F-35 fighter jet's acquisition every year since Congress mandated it in 2005, publishing an unclassified version each time so lawmakers and the public could independently check the health of the Pentagon's most expensive weapons program. In June 2026, the Defense Department reviewed that year's report and marked the entire document Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) -- a records-handling category that keeps sensitive-but-unclassified material out of public release without the formal review a classification decision requires. Multiple outlets reported⧉ it is the first time in more than 20 years that has happened to any of 's annual F-35 acquisition reviews.