The cost of the Joint Strike Fighter, which is favoured to replace the Dutch fleet of F-16 fighter aircraft, may rise to 100 million dollars per plane. The price tag is nearly double that estimated when the project to build the new plane was launched in 2001.

The news was given to a United States Senate committee by a senior pentagon official. The fighter plane should come on line in 2016, four years later than planned. The Pentagon admits that the aircraft's development has not gone as smoothly as hoped.

The Joint Strike Fighter is being developed by the United States but the Netherlands, together with other partner governments, is also involved in the project.

The Dutch parliament has just declared the decision whether or not to buy a second JSF test plane too controversial to be decided before a new government is in office after early elections in June. The final decision on whether the Netherlands will replace its F-16s with a fleet of JSF planes will not be taken before 2012 at the earliest.
 

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