Former U.S. Air Force Pilot Arrested for Allegedly Training Chinese Military Pilots

The Justice Department revealed on Wednesday the arrest of a former Air Force fighter pilot accused of unlawfully providing training to Chinese military personnel.

Gerald Brown, aged 65, was apprehended in Indiana after his recent return from China, where he had been residing since December 2023, according to a statement from the Justice Department.

Brown faces allegations of conspiring with foreign nationals to deliver combat aircraft training to pilots in the Chinese Air Force without obtaining the necessary license from the U.S. State Department, as detailed in the statement.

FBI Director Kash Patel highlighted the significance of the arrest on social media, stating, “Major story… the FBI and our partners have arrested a former US Air Force Pilot who was allegedly training pilots in the Chinese military.”

John A. Eisenberg, the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, commented, “The United States Air Force trained Major Brown to be an elite fighter pilot and entrusted him with the defense of our nation. He now stands charged with training Chinese military pilots.”

Brown had a 24-year career in the U.S. Air Force during which he “commanded sensitive units with responsibility for nuclear weapons delivery systems, led combat missions, and served as a fighter pilot instructor and simulator instructor on a variety of fighter and attack aircraft,” the DOJ said.

He retired from the military in 1996 and worked as a cargo pilot, the statement said, but he later began a role with two U.S. defense contractors training pilots to fly the A-10 and state-of-the-art F-35 fighter jets, according to the statement. 

Brown allegedly began negotiating a contract in August 2023 with Stephen Su Bin — a Chinese national who was imprisoned in the U.S. for four years beginning in 2016 over another espionage scheme — and traveled in December 2023 to China to begin his training job.

“The Chinese government continues to exploit the expertise of current and former members of the U.S. armed forces to modernize China’s military capabilities,” said Roman Rozhavsky, an official with the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division.

“This arrest serves as a warning that the FBI and our partners will stop at nothing to hold accountable anyone who collaborates with our adversaries to harm our service members and jeopardize our national security,” he added.