US Congress Committee Probes Lockheed Martin Failure to Meet F-35 Contract Demands

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – Lockheed Martin must face accountability for its continuing and expensive failure to provide enough spare parts for the troubled F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter, senior members of the House Oversight and Reform Committee said in a letter on Tuesday.

Oversight Committee Chair Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney and Committee members Stephen Lynch, Jackie Speier and Ro Khanna sent the letter to Lockheed Martin CEO James Taiclet, according to a press release.

In June 2019, the Department of Defence Inspector General estimated that the Pentagon had spent more than $300 million on additional labor costs between 2015 and 2018 as a result of Lockheed Martin’s failure to provide F-35 spare parts with logs and that the Defence Department would continue to pay $55 million a year if those issues were not resolved, the release noted.

In March 2020, the Government Accountability Office reported that, at one location, F-35 maintenance personnel warned that during a six-month period in 2019, they experienced up to 400 issues per week of inaccurate or missing electronic logs, the release added.

Sourse: sputniknews.com