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The story
It has emerged that the canopy and weapons bay door of an F-35 stealth fighter, which were supposed to be shipped from Australia to the US, were mistakenly delivered to Hong Kong after a UPS employee overlooked a security alert — and were seized by Chinese authorities upon arrival. According to a Bloomberg report, the shipment stopped in South Korea en route to the US before being rerouted to Hong Kong, though the reason for this, and whether it was a misdelivery or an intentional diversion, remain unclear. On 5ch, a wave of skeptical comments followed, with users suggesting “this has to be intentional” and “China managing to seize it that cleanly seems too convenient,” while others raised concerns about the risk of putting sensitive military parts on a civilian shipping network in the first place.
F-35 Parts Mistakenly Sent to Hong Kong, Seized by China After Security Warning Went Unchecked
According to Bloomberg on the 7th (local time), F-35 parts shipped from Australia to the US in May were mistakenly delivered to Hong Kong, apparently because a UPS employee failed to check a security warning. The shipment included the F-35’s cockpit canopy and weapons bay door. The situation has escalated after Chinese authorities seized the parts upon their arrival in Hong Kong.
Warning Overlooked, Shipment Diverted to Hong Kong: The Original Route and the Error
Source: smartnews.com / Original article here
What people said
They'll give it back once they're done analyzing it.
They did it on purpose.
Someone should get Jack Bauer to interrogate them (the relentless interrogator from the TV show "24").
That guy's a loser who's always getting busted for speeding and stuff.
The guy who "misdelivered" it is clearly an agent, so they should just arrest him already.
Trump: "I'm gonna sell American-made weapons to China!"
And that's not even some crazy conspiracy theory anymore.
If you don't send the stealth parts, we'll dump a ton of US Treasury bonds.
Does something like this even happen by accident?
Yeah, probably intentional.
This is gonna keep happening from now on.
Guess they're off the list for defense-related deliveries for a while.
Should've just shipped it with DHL.
Makes you wonder if they got a heads-up beforehand.
Right, that's the thing.
Way too many comments in this thread missing the point, lol
They're probably cutting out small samples right now to analyze the layer structure (of the stealth coating).
The wreckage of the F-117 shot down over Yugoslavia ended up in China and Russia too, didn't it.
They even sold genuine fragments in the museum gift shop.
Back then you could even buy pieces on eBay.
I think it's just a matter of probability. Even Six Sigma shows that problems occur at some probability.
Plane crashes happen too, slipping through multiple layers of checks.
Must mean they have some system in place to check cargo, even if only superficially.
Do they really list military secret items on the manifest without disguising them, though?
There's this thing called customs clearance —
you have to declare the contents, lol
I wonder if they honestly wrote stuff like "defense equipment," "military secret," "do not open," "this side up," "fragile" right on the box?
I'm sure it says "canopy" and "access door" on it, plus probably some special handling notes too.
That's just what going through civilian customs means.
According to one source, the shipment stopped in South Korea on its way to the US before being rerouted to Hong Kong.
The reasons for the stop in Korea and the detour to Hong Kong remain unknown, and it's still unclear whether the parts were deliberately diverted or sent by mistake.
Ah, so it suddenly got switched to Hong Kong-bound while in Korea.
The article doesn't mention that at all though — it just says Taiwan and stuff.
Yeah, this is definitely no accident.
Because Australia can't build it themselves.
At the very least they should've routed it through Japan.
They did this exact plot in Gundam.
To start a war and keep it dragging on, both sides' military strength has to stay balanced.
Typical Anaheim, always playing dirty (the shady weapons manufacturer from the Gundam universe).
That's not quite how it works, but it's entirely plausible they'll analyze the stealth coating and put it to use.
The part where the Psycommu Frame leaks out of the development division.
The part where the Nu Gundam is clinging onto Axis
and firing its reverse thrusters.
The part where Camran Bloom secretly hands a nuclear warhead off to Bright.
Background and Key Points of This Story
The fact that the F-35’s canopy and weapons bay door were routed through South Korea on their way from Australia to the US, only to end up diverted to Hong Kong, shows how even military aircraft parts travel as ordinary cargo through civilian shipping networks in international logistics. Even though customs paperwork lists items like “canopy” and “door,” the risk of a security alert being overlooked somewhere along the way always exists as long as commercial carriers — rather than dedicated military transport — are being used. Opinions on the thread split between those convinced it was intentional and those calling it a simple logistics error, but as of the time of posting, the reporting hadn’t clarified the reason for the reroute, so neither theory could be confirmed. There is precedent for this kind of leak: wreckage from the F-117 shot down over Yugoslavia in 1999 ended up in China and Russia, so this wouldn’t be the first time stealth technology has leaked out through an accident or conflict. That said, it’s easy to misread the situation — “Chinese authorities seized it” doesn’t necessarily mean the parts are already being analyzed; for now, it may simply be held up in customs procedures.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News速報+) thread “F-35 Stealth Parts Mistakenly Sent to Hong Kong, Seized by Chinese Authorities.”
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