Former US Air Force Pilot Arrested for Allegedly Providing Combat Training to Chinese Military

A former U.S. Air Force pilot has been arrested and charged on suspicion of providing combat training to Chinese military pilots without requisite authorization, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a Feb. 25 statement.

Gerald Eddie Brown Jr., 65, was arrested Wednesday in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and charged with violation of the Arms Export Control Act.

“Since at least in or around August 2023, Brown willfully conspired with foreign nationals and U.S. persons to provide combat aircraft training to pilots in the Chinese Air Force, known as the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF),” the DOJ said.

The alleged training was a defense service under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, and Brown lacked the required license from the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls to provide the service to foreign military units, the statement said.

Brown served in the U.S. Air Force for more than 24 years, leaving active duty in 1996. During his tenure, Brown led combat missions, commanded sensitive units overseeing nuclear weapons delivery systems, and served as a pilot and simulator instructor for a wide range of aircraft, including the F-15, F-16, and A-10.

Most recently, he served as a simulator instructor for two defense contractors training U.S. pilots on flying the F-35 and A-10, the DOJ said.

In or around August 2023, Brown allegedly began arranging the terms of contract to train Chinese military pilots. In December that year, he traveled to China to start training Chinese military pilots, remaining in the country until early February 2026, when he traveled back to the United States, according to the DOJ statement.

Brown is expected to have his initial appearance before a magistrate judge on Feb. 26 at the Southern District of Indiana.

“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, assistant director of 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.”

The Epoch Times was unable to reach out to legal representatives for Brown.

The incident drew criticism from Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), who highlighted the CCP’s practice of targeting Americans for intelligence and intellectual property.

“The U.S. military trusted Gerald Brown to use his elite training to protect our country, and he is charged with betraying that trust,” he stated. “This case again highlights how China targets servicemembers and Americans from all walks of life to steal information and innovation from our country.”

Multiple cases of former or current U.S. military personnel working for Chinese interests have popped up over the past year.

Earlier this month, a German court sentenced a U.S. citizen to two years and eight months in prison for offering to hand over sensitive U.S. military information to Chinese intelligence. The man, identified as Martin D., was working as a civilian employee of a U.S. military base in Germany.

In August, a U.S. Navy sailor, Wei Jinchao, 25, who was born in China and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2022, was convicted of spying for the communist regime. He was accused of selling sensitive information regarding U.S. warships to a Chinese intelligence officer. Jinchao was recruited by the officer online via social media.

Chinese Threat in Indo-Pacific

The arrests and convictions come as U.S. intelligence has consistently identified China as a major threat to the United States.

A March 2025 Annual Threat Assessment report published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence warned that China presents the “most comprehensive and robust military threat to U.S. national security.”

A key focus of China’s military modernization is developing counter-intervention capabilities to tackle all aspects of American and allied military operations in the Pacific region.

In its 2026 National Defense Strategy, the Department of War said that the Indo-Pacific region will soon make up more than half of the global economy. As such, American citizens’ security and prosperity are directly linked to the United States’ ability to engage from a position of strength in the region, the report said.

“Were China—or anyone else, for that matter—to dominate this broad and crucial region, it would be able to effectively veto Americans’ access to the world’s economic center of gravity, with enduring implications for our nation’s economic prospects, including our ability to reindustrialize,” according to the report.

This is why the National Security Strategy directs the Department of War to maintain a favorable military power balance in the Indo-Pacific region, the report said. “Not for purposes of dominating, humiliating, or strangling China. To the contrary, our goal is far more scoped and reasonable than that: It is simply to ensure that neither China nor anyone else can dominate us or our allies.”