WASHINGTON — Citing “disastrous” management of the F-35 development program and “obvious, catastrophic failings” in the aircraft itself, the Air Force and Marine Corps will jointly announce this afternoon the cancellation of the most expensive procurement project in history, sources have told Duffel Blog.

Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, Air Force Chief of Staff, and Gen. Joseph Dunford, Commandant of the Marine Corps and nominee to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will make the announcement together at the Pentagon at 5:30pm.

“We’ve already spent over $400 billion on the development of this aircraft,” said a senior Pentagon official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the program with the media. “Just to put that in perspective, when Reagan wanted a 600-ship navy, his most aggressive plan would have cost $119 billion over six years.”

“We’ve known for years it was a failure, but the argument was always ‘we’ve already sunk so much into it, just a few more dollars will make it work,'” he added.