AI-rewritten: This is a summary of an article from Tom’s Hardware, rewritten by AI (Qwen, running locally) to make it easier to read. The facts come from the original article – read it for the full story.

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Insiders speaking to Bloomberg report that top-secret F-35 fighter jet parts were intercepted by China after a UPS worker missed an email warning about shipping regulations. The Royal Australian Air Force sent cockpit canopies and weapons-bay doors from Australia to San Francisco for inspection. These items are coated with radar-absorbing material, which makes their stealth capabilities more sensitive than the physical parts themselves.

According to U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations, shipments of such equipment must avoid certain countries and territories, including Hong Kong. An email from freight specialist DSV instructed UPS that these goods required special handling under ITAR rules. However, Bloomberg sources say the email did not reach the correct UPS agent due to a system mismatch. Because the shipment was delayed, the agent chose to route it through Hong Kong to save time, an error described as "inexplicable" in earlier reports.

The Chinese government took possession of the parts in Hong Kong and has not released them. The Chinese Foreign Ministry stated it is unaware of the missing items. While the Pentagon downplayed the incident by calling the components "unserviceable," a representative from the Government Accountability Office described the loss as significant, suggesting it could allow Chinese teams to reverse engineer the technology. Neither DSV nor UPS provided comments when contacted by Bloomberg.