New Delhi: The US Wednesday said it has arrested and charged a former elite fighter pilot for allegedly providing unauthorised military training to China’s air force, in what prosecutors have described as a direct threat to American national security.
Gerald Eddie Brown, a retired Air Force major known by his callsign “Runner”, was taken into custody in Jeffersonville, Indiana, on charges of conspiring to train pilots of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF). He faces prosecution under the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) for allegedly sharing sophisticated combat tactics with a foreign military without mandatory State Department authorisation.
“The United States Air Force trained Major Brown to be an elite fighter pilot and entrusted him with the defence of our Nation. He now stands charged with training Chinese military pilots,” John A. Eisenberg, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, said in a statement released by the US Department of Justice.
Eisenberg noted that providing military training to a foreign power without a federal licence was a criminal offence, and said the National Security Division would deploy “all tools at its disposal” to protect US military advantages.
There was no public statement from Brown’s legal counsel.
According to the Department of Justice, Brown’s alleged collaboration with the PLAAF began around August 2023, when he used a co-conspirator to negotiate contract terms with Stephen Su Bin, a Chinese citizen convicted in 2016 of hacking US defence contractors to steal sensitive export-controlled data.
According to the DOJ statement, Brown allegedly expressed his eagerness to return to flying, saying that he would finally “have the chance to fly and instruct fighter pilots again.”
Brown, 65, retired from the Air Force in 1996 after 24 years of service. His resume, apparently prepared during negotiations, detailed a career that included commanding units responsible for nuclear weapons delivery and flying the F-4 Phantom II, F-15 Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon, and A-10 Thunderbolt II.
He subsequently worked as a contract simulator instructor for US defence firms, training American pilots on the fifth-generation F-35 Lightning II — experience that prosecutors say made him a valuable target for Chinese recruitment.
Brown allegedly travelled to China in December 2023 to begin his work. On his first day there, according to American authorities, he underwent three hours of questioning about US Air Force operations before presenting a formal briefing on his expertise to the PLAAF. He returned to the US this month and was subsequently arrested.
Roman Rozhavsky, Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division, was quoted as saying in the statement, “Brown has betrayed his country by training Chinese pilots to fight against those he swore to protect.”
“The Chinese government continues to exploit the expertise of current and former members of the U.S. armed forces to modernise China’s military capabilities,” Rozhavsky added.
The case is not an isolated one. In 2017, Daniel Edmund Duggan, a former US Marine Corps pilot, was accused of training Chinese pilots in aircraft carrier manoeuvres. He is currently fighting extradition from Australia.
Duggan became a naturalised Australian citizen and was arrested by local police in 2022, shortly after he returned from China. He had been living in Australia since 2014.
The case had prompted a rare joint warning from the Five Eyes intelligence alliance—comprising the US, Australia, the UK, Canada, and New Zealand—which alerted Western military veterans to the PLA’s active efforts to recruit them and harness their expertise.
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