Stealth Cost to Increase $10 Billion, Report Says

The cost of the Stealth bomber project awarded to Hawthorne-based Northrop has been set at $10 billion more than the Pentagon’s latest estimate, the New York Times reported Thursday.

The General Accounting Office, a congressional investigative agency, puts the cost of the fleet of 132 radar-evading nuclear bombers at $68.8 billion.

When the Air Force awarded Northrop the contract eight years ago, the cost was estimated at $36.6 billion. The latest Pentagon estimate was $59.2 billion.

The GAO report didn’t speculate as to why the cost is now so much higher. But Northrop has been hit over the past year with numerous allegations of mismanagement in the Stealth program, and federal investigations are under way into some of those charges.

Northrop, Air Force and governmental officials had remained secretive about the bomber for the past eight years. Earlier this year, however, a conceptual drawing of the plane was released and the Air Force announced that the first of the nuclear bombers would make its maiden flight before the end of the year.