APPARENTLY THERE WAS NO TRACKING NUMBER: The F-35 has a stealth problem that has nothing to do with flying. Some of its parts have apparently disappeared. According to Politico, a shipment of "unserviceable" F-35 components was being sent from Australia to the United States for repairs when it was mysteriously diverted while crossing the Pacific and wound up in Hong Kong. The Pentagon has confirmed there was a "shipment issue" and says it is working with U.S. authorities and Lockheed Martin to recover the parts and figure out what happened. Among the components was an F-35 cockpit canopy, which is an acrylic hi-tech bubble coated in secret stealth material. Congress has reportedly known about it since June, and the obvious question is how a shipment of sensitive F-35 hardware suddenly took a wrong turn for Chinese controlled Hong Kong. There is no public evidence that China obtained or examined the parts, but we hear they have a very good lost and found department. This is not the F-35 program's first inventory problem. A 2023 GAO report found more than one million F-35 spare parts had gone missing over five years and concluded the Pentagon can't even audit the losses because Lockheed controls the records. The timing of the latest report is kind of awkward. Chinese President Xi Jinping is due at the White House for a state visit this week. Maybe he can use his influence to find the missing parts and bring them along with his delegation's luggage, eh?
SALUTING THE AIR FORCE WITH A NAVY JET: Michael Whatley, the former RNC chair who is now running for Senate in North Carolina, marked the Air Force's 79th birthday in an X post last week with a warm message of gratitude… and a photo of a Navy F-14 Tomcat. Here’s the rub: The Grumman-made jets last flew off of carrier decks in 2006. Whatley’s whoopsie was spotted by the Wall Street Journal’s Dave Brown, (who has found similar screw ups as the Dead Drop has noted in the past.) The post was captured and circulated before it was quietly deleted. But the post joins a long and undistinguished tradition of politicians honoring service branches they cannot identify on sight. It was Whatley's second high-profile correction this month. Earlier in September, he marked the anniversary of 9/11 by saying we would never forget the attacks of "September 1, 2001," a post that also came down fast and drew its own round of mockery. There are some among us who might just brush this off as a typo (which is highly likely) but where’s the fun in that?
MI-LIED? Britain’s MI5's professional posture rests on saying nothing. So it was off that the organization admitted last week that for three years, in three separate courtrooms, that it lied. According to the BBC, the case involves a violent, neo-Nazi-linked MI5 informant who abused his partner, known in court only as "Beth." When BBC journalist Daniel De Simone started investigating the man, MI5 tried to head him off by confirming, in a phone call, that the informant worked for the service. Then, under oath, in front of judges, MI5 swore it had never confirmed any such thing and had strictly maintained its "neither confirm nor deny" policy throughout. But De Simone had the call on tape. At a High Court hearing last Friday, MI5's barrister accepted a watchdog's findings in full: the testimony was false, a senior officer lied repeatedly, and the false account was allowed to stand for years. Judges are now weighing contempt proceedings against MI5 whose counsel has offered an “unreserved apology” but said “errors that had been made had not been deliberate.”
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