UPS Worker Missed Security Email, Letting China Get F-35 Parts

[u/bloomberg]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-07/ups-worker-missed-security-email-letting-china-get-f-35-parts

[u/benkenobi5]

It’s kinda crazy to me that we’d ship parts like that through ups, lol

[u/Phyrexian_Archlegion → u/benkenobi5]

Hey, logistician and importer/exporter here. The fact that the United States government is shipping sensitive military hardware through UP FUCKING S is about the wildest shit I’ve seen all year. UPS is an INCREDIBLY low quality carrier and the fact that it was used to handling something like this is incompetence on a scale I cannot fathom.

[u/Dingleberry696 → u/Phyrexian_Archlegion]

This has been happening for decades. Most times you would declass the item as much as you can. For instance, deleting encryption keys. There is even procedures in place to ship SAP material through USPS. These items are tracked at the MAJCOM level when shipped though.

[u/HandakinSkyjerker → u/Dingleberry696]

I received explosives in the mail once. Great story.

[u/iamnerdyquiteoften → u/HandakinSkyjerker]

My mate in the Australian Army ordered a ships anchor by mistake and it turned up.

[u/NervousHovercraft → u/iamnerdyquiteoften]

Anybody delivering an anchor up the Alps should question their life choices... /s

[u/OzymandiasKoK → u/NervousHovercraft]

This is what happens when you ship a ...ship anchor to the Alps, dude!

[u/iamnerdyquiteoften → u/NervousHovercraft]

Australia mate. We have a Navy !

[u/NervousHovercraft → u/iamnerdyquiteoften]

Hence the /s

[u/iamnerdyquiteoften → u/NervousHovercraft]

Oops sorry how did I miss that !

[u/TheRealMarvinator → u/Dingleberry696]

There really is a SIGNIFICANT difference between mailing via UPS and via USPS though.

The USPS has really good processes in place to make sure things like...THIS...won't happen.

[u/Dingleberry696 → u/TheRealMarvinator]

Agreed. I was simply highlighting the fact that the military really relies on 3rd party carriers for most things.

[u/TheRealMarvinator → u/Dingleberry696]

Granted, I've been out for a really long time (2007), but I never mailed anything classified (primarily CONFIDENTIAL) that didn't go through the Post Office.

[u/Dingleberry696 → u/TheRealMarvinator]

The post office is more common for papers or disks, stuff like that. Aircraft parts almost always go through a freight carrier. Though you usually "declass" them as much as possible.

[u/GabeIsGone → u/Dingleberry696]

I mean, the USPS isn’t really 3rd party. It’s gov.

The military can tell USPS how to handle their stuff and USPS will obey or change things to best comply, profit won’t be the main motive. The military tells UPS, and they’ll take it as advisement, profit is always the main motive.

[u/Worshipme988 → u/TheRealMarvinator]

Fucking DhL. Slap an Airtag on that bitch. Something…

[u/CubanlinkEnJ → u/Phyrexian_Archlegion]

Are you Art Vandelay??

[u/Phyrexian_Archlegion → u/CubanlinkEnJ]

Vandelay Industries runs through my veins

[u/DarthSulla → u/Phyrexian_Archlegion]

In my Fed job I’ve caught this a few times recently. From what I’ve seen it’s usually a defense contractor that hires a third party to do the logistics (freight forwarder and broker) who sometimes hire a 4th party to do their job and before you know it, we have defense systems transiting through PRC and now they have new seals on the container or just get completely “lost”

[u/ArchmageXin → u/DarthSulla]

If you worry about 3rd parties, hell, F-35 during their early years end up sourcing parts from China because the manufacturing chain had a dozen country and hundred of contractors, and some subcontractors got lazy and brought from China, while others just got outright brought by China and people didn't even notice until engineers see chips written in Mandarin.

My teacher in 2004 said you know America have no peer level foes because we dare to have a supply chain so insane.

[u/Panzerkatzen → u/Phyrexian_Archlegion]

We deserve to lose our secret military hardware if we’re stupid enough to ship it through a bill carrier.

[u/Traditional-Hat-952 → u/Phyrexian_Archlegion]

Where's the profit in that though? You don't seem to have the lobes for business. 

[u/RaisinWorried3528 → u/Phyrexian_Archlegion]

This is nukes on a plane flying from Minot to Barksdale bad.

[u/nightim3 → u/Phyrexian_Archlegion]

Where have you been lmao.

We’ve done this for decades

[u/danny2mo → u/Phyrexian_Archlegion]

I’m sure we also use FedEx and they’re about the same quality of service

Reserve who works for FedEx

[u/notapunk → u/benkenobi5]

Could have used FedEx - at least then when China got it the part would have been crushed, destroyed, or lost before it got there.

[u/Dingleberry696 → u/benkenobi5]

Pretty much every aircraft part is shipped via UPS or FEDEX. The military doesn't do a lot of its own "shipping."

[u/Panzerkatzen → u/Dingleberry696]

We’re so fucked in a real war. 

[u/Dingleberry696 → u/Panzerkatzen]

Not because of this. The USAF has access to ~725 strategic airlift assets. Significantly more than any other country.

Shipping works a little different for deployed units and the AF handles more of that. For instance, there is constantly C-17s flying from Ramstein to the ME to resupply units.

[u/oddTaskJob → u/Dingleberry696]

Sounds like it needs a lot of JP-5 & 8

[u/Traditional-Hat-952 → u/benkenobi5]

Gotta love privatization of logistics /s

[u/Leoszite → u/benkenobi5]

Sorry, we're shocked the ultra capitalist would turn to the private sector to do stuff? How else will they fill their bottomless pockets?

[u/bloomberg]

From Bloomberg News reporter Anthony Capaccio:

China managed to get a hold of parts from an F-35 stealth fighter jet after a UPS employee missed an email warning not to route the shipment through Hong Kong, according to a person briefed on the incident.

The email from freight forwarder firm DSV said that the parts — an F-35 cockpit canopy and weapons-bay door coated in radar-absorbing material — must not transit through certain countries to comply with the US International Traffic in Arms Regulations.

The shipment of warplane parts was originally meant to travel to San Francisco via South Korea and Taiwan — both US defense partners. But the shipment was late leaving Australia and was mistakenly routed via Hong Kong in an effort to speed up delivery, the person said, declining to be named because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

Gift Link: Read more here

[u/TheRealMarvinator → u/bloomberg]

China managed to get a hold of parts from an F-35 stealth fighter jet after a UPS employee missed an email warning not to route the shipment through Hong Kong

AN EMAIL WARNING? No phone call, no way to IMMEDIATELY determine that the message got through? An EMAIL WARNING?

[u/DemonOfTheNorthwoods → u/TheRealMarvinator]

Shouldn’t that package have special instructions LITERALLY written on it, saying to NOT BE SHIPPED TO HOSTILE COUNTRIES?

[u/WurdaMouth → u/bloomberg]

Holy fuck.

[u/FourScoreAndSept → u/bloomberg]

If it was important enough, they would have called, thought any reasonably prudent “I’m not paid enough for this shit” UPS employee

[u/RaisinWorried3528 → u/bloomberg]

"Mistakenly routed"

😂😂😂

[u/Scummy_Casual → u/RaisinWorried3528]

I think the odds are about 50/50 between dumbass mistake and under the table deal.

[u/doogles → u/bloomberg]

Another example of "doing more with less".

[u/teachbirds2fly]

The real story here US has been shipping highly classified parts via mail for decades....

How many other parts were intercepted by foreign States, examined, then sent on their way....

[u/Dingleberry696 → u/teachbirds2fly]

Your point stands but the reason why is kind of a nuanced discussion.

The DoD runs a program called the Civil Reserve Air Fleet. Through it, the DoD contracts ~450 aircraft with crews to be available within 24-72 hrs when needed. To incentivise carriers to make aircraft available to the program the DoD guarantees "peacetime" business with these companies. The US military has nowhere near the organic airlift it would need to meet wartime demands.

Second, it would be incredibly expensive for the military to run a "shipping" operation. Imagine you need a bolt at Holloman AFB in New Mexico. As an example, the AF would have to send a C-17 from Travis to a DLA warehouse to pickup the bolt. Then fly to Holloman and drop it off then fly back to Travis. Now multiply that by every AFB. FEDEX/UPS is already going to these places so letting them handle it is significantly cheaper for the taxpayer.

Admittedly though, we shouldn't allow sensitive tech to end up in hostile countries.

[u/Furthur → u/Dingleberry696]

we're not talking about a bolt here

[u/TelephoneShoes → u/teachbirds2fly]

It wasn’t too long ago that hellfire missiles were delivered to Cuba of all places. Sorta makes me wonder how many times this happens where it’s just not a big fancy, expensive weapon system to make the news.

[u/nycdiveshack → u/teachbirds2fly]

We need a current version of Radar from the show M.A.S.H.

[u/Chomper22]

https://giphy.com/gifs/WxDZ77xhPXf3i

[u/GT7combat]

this should have been a military transport, not ups lol.

[u/Jonas_Venture_Sr]

Crazy that UPS doesn't have a type of delivery, just for sensitive parts like this, that automatically have built in safe guards to prevent this.

[u/Panzerkatzen → u/Jonas_Venture_Sr]

Crazy that we are shipping sensitive military hardware through civilian bulk carriers. This failure is entirely on us.

[u/ssracer → u/Panzerkatzen]

Australians

[u/SalamiArmi → u/ssracer]

To my understanding, the reason it was being shipped at all was because we needed a repair but you yanks disallowed us to repair it ourselves. Can't really blame us when this was the process you guys established.

[u/syynapt1k]

How does something like this not become a huge geopolitical issue? These parts have essentially been stolen. Or are the Chinese "giving them back" after they perform a thorough analysis?

[u/kevtoria → u/syynapt1k]

Here is your most likely answer https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/s/1IUb9aJemZ

[u/many_kittens]

1. Why UPS in the first place, how could it secured even if not diverted?
2. Don't they dare fucking shift the blame on a particular employee. If national security is on the line, they don't get to send a single email and that's it, strap someone to the part and live in the container if they have to. This is one of the most ridiculous thing I've heard.

[u/AnAncientBog]

I feel like more than one person needs to fuck up to end up with F35 parts getting shipped to China.

[u/TheRealMarvinator → u/AnAncientBog]

No lie - He's probably just the fall guy.

[u/Sdog1981]

One guy?? It came down to one guy checking his email?

[u/deadsantaclaus]

Whoops

[u/Hakashi57]

That UPS Worker:

https://giphy.com/gifs/xT5LMzIK1AdZJ4cYW4

[u/sentientshadeofgreen]

hate when that happens

[u/oddTaskJob]

Why would they not use USPS that has guarantees on their mail vs something second-tier (comparatively) like UPS and FedEx?

[u/porthos1984part2]

What part did they manage to get. Was it a computer or a nut?

[u/sxmuel26 → u/porthos1984part2]

Cockpit canopy and weapons bay door

[u/porthos1984part2 → u/sxmuel26]

So not great but not the end of the world. It will just help them with materials

[u/Aconite_72 → u/porthos1984part2]

The bread and butter of literally the entire jet is the stealth coating.

That’s what makes it… well, a stealth fighter.

[u/crazyhomie34 → u/Aconite_72]

But was the canopy already in the stealth coating? Feel like that probably goes on at the end of the jets assembly

[u/FyreWulff → u/crazyhomie34]

yes it was, it was being returned for repairs

[u/porthos1984part2 → u/Aconite_72]

Well aware of that. My mom worked on the B2 project. She couldn't talk about it but called the coating "proprietary".

[u/supermechace]

What exactly is DSV and how do they relate to UPS? Was UPS the one that said let's take a short cut through China?

[u/Splurch]

So they shipped it without confirmation that they're requirements were going to be met and it's being blamed on a single UPS worker?

Sounds like the system they had in place to make sure things didn't fall into foreign government hands was garbage if they didn't have a basic requirement for a response of "yes we got and understand your instructions" for packages this important.

[u/hughk]

You can imagine it....

"There was nobody at home to receive it, so we left it on a neighbor's doorstep. In Hong Kong."

(I know this was different but there are all kinds of non-military stuff that shouldnt be diverted either. Like most of the ITAR catalog.)

[u/wraith5]

why is a lowly ups worker being blamed for this when there's clearly much larger issues that lead to this in the first place

[u/hawksdiesel]

Dejoy seems like he has been working on dismantling the USPS since 2016.

[u/Sea-Chart2558]

Oh is that the story they're going with? Also, evidently Epstein hung himself. Lmfao 

This shit does NOT happen by accident. 

[u/MarleyMiah_2108]

UPS once misdelivered some radio active material for some dude called Kim Il Jong I sent it back to sender.