SHADOW FLIGHTS: LEAKS REVEAL NEW U.S. ROUTE OF F-35 JET PARTS TO ISRAEL
Published by Declassified Australia
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Who is named
The characters and things this document talks about — 20 in alls. Each links to everything else the record knows about them.
People 3
Organisations 6
Australian government Australian Department of Defence Declassified Australia Israel United Airlines Thai Airways
Claims made
Every claim in this document. Firsthand = asserted on its own basis; secondhand = recounted from elsewhere, carrying no independent weight.
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The secret cargo of Australian F‑35 parts was diverted onto passenger planes of United Airlines.
New shipping records leaked to Declassified Australia show the secret cargo of Australian parts for Israel’s F-35 fighter jets has been diverted onto passenger planes of US airline, United Airlines.
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After two years being flown on Thai Airways planes, the records indicate the sensitive shipments leaving Sydney are no longer regularly flying through Bangkok but are now taking a longer pathway through the United States.
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This logistical pivot seems to have come after exclusive reporting last year by Declassified Australia in October that has shown multiple exports of F-35 fighter jet parts from Sydney to Israel via Bangkok.
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For months senior ministers had been claiming firstly that Australia exports no weapons at all to Israel, then conceding that exports may be going to a US global hub, and then claiming that only non-lethal weapons parts were exported to Israel.
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“The F-35 as part of the global F35 supply chain, we contribute components and parts that are non-lethal in nature.”
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Further leaks to Declassified Australia revealed that by November last year the total of known exports of F-35 fighter jet parts since October 2023 had reached at least 71 shipments.
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Of particular relevance to the Foreign Minister’s claim, these shipments included a gasket for the F-35’s four-barrel 25mm GAU-22/A cannon that fires 3,300 rounds per minute to devastating effect in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran – certainly a very lethal weapon.
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The new secret pipeline of F‑35 parts went live on 10 December 2025.
On Wednesday, 10 December 2025, the new secret pipeline of F-35 parts went live.
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The first F‑35 part flown out of Sydney on the new route was described as a ‘Clamp’.
According to new shipping records leaked to Declassified Australia, the first F-35 fighter jet part flown out of Sydney on the new airline and the new route was described obscurely as a ‘Clamp’.
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It was however clearly labelled as being for the ‘JSF’, the Joint Strike Fighter, and was marked as having been sent to Israel from ‘2314 Williamtown’, which is the unique postcode address of RAAF Base Williamtown, home of Australia’s fleet of F-35A Joint Strike Fighters.
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In Sydney on a clear December afternoon, United Airlines scheduled passenger flight number UA870 left from Sydney International Airport’s Terminal 1 just after midday, heading north-east across the Pacific on a 13-hour flight to San Francisco.
San Francisco International… Sydney International Airport UA870
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The leaked shipping records show the package on board the flight was offloaded in San Francisco International Airport onto another United Airlines passenger flight UA2248 for a five-hour hop to New York’s Newark Liberty International Airport. The following day it left on the 10-hour final leg of its journey on United Airlines passenger flight UA84 touching down at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv in Israel on the morning of Friday, 12 December 2025.
Ben Gurion International Airport Clamp part Newark Liberty International… San Francisco International… UA2248 UA84
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This minimal time spent in transit with connecting flights continuing the journey to Israel is important. It shows the parts were not in the USA for sufficient time for further manufacture or repair, nor for storage in a US global F-35 parts hub. They flew from Australia through the United States to Israel in just two days.
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This suggests the new routing may have been developed for the purpose of ‘origin laundering’, where Ministers and Defence officials in Australia could claim no F-35 weapons parts are being sent to Israel direct from Australia but are merely added to a global hub in the US to which Israel has access.
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The leaked documents showing the route alteration confirm that despite mounting public scrutiny, the flow of lethal F-35 components from Australia to Israel has continued uninterrupted.
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If the rerouting was intended to ‘wash’ the parts’ Australian origin, it failed.
If the purpose of the rerouting of the F-35 parts package through the United States had been to ‘wash’ the part’s origins of its Australian connection, it failed.
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Over the next three months following Declassified Australia’s December report, there have been a total of nine additional Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft parts flown out of Sydney International Airport on United Airlines passenger flights via the US to Tel Aviv in Israel.
Australian F‑35 parts Ben Gurion International Airport Sydney International Airport United Airlines
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According to all of the leaked shipping documents examined by Declassified Australia, this now brings to 80 the total of documented parts marked for the Joint Strike Fighter and secretly exported to Israel on passenger planes from Sydney International Airport between October 2023 and February 2026.
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Thai Airways International’s CEO, Chai Eamsiri, stated the airline did not knowingly transport military aircraft components heading from Australia to Israel.
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Defence Minister Richard Marles since June 2024 is meant to exercise his ministerial scrutiny of defence exports “to every potential shipment to Israel”.
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Declassified Australia contacted both United Airlines and the Department of Defence to ask a series of questions about the flights, and on the security considerations given to the use of passenger airplanes for the exports of military parts from Australia. Neither took the opportunity provided to them to respond by deadline.
Australian Department of Defence Declassified Australia United Airlines
No claims match this filter.
Syndication
Who is repeating whom. This is shown as structure, and it is the reason a chorus never moves a belief bar: forty tellings of one assertion are still one.
- possibly restates Netanyahu’s October 7 ‘generals’ revolt’ conspiracy runs into a contradiction unconfirmed
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