Former US Air Force major arrested for training Chinese military pilots, Prosecutors say he worked without State Department licence and lived in China for two years, Export controls chase skills that cannot be repossessed

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A retired U.S. Air Force major who once trained American combat aviators was arrested in Indiana on Wednesday on allegations he provided combat aircraft training to Chinese military pilots without the required U.S. State Department license, according to federal prosecutors.

Gerald Eddie Brown Jr., 65, was charged by criminal complaint in Washington, D.C. with providing — and conspiring to provide — “defense services” to foreign nationals without authorisation from the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, BNO News reports, citing the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Prosecutors say the alleged conspiracy began in August 2023 and involved training pilots in the People’s Liberation Army Air Force.

The case is a reminder of what governments can buy and what they cannot. Air forces can pay to create a pool of rare skills — weapons delivery, tactics, and simulator instruction on platforms such as the A-10 and the F-35 — but once a pilot leaves service, the state no longer controls the labour market for that expertise. Brown, who served more than 24 years and flew aircraft including the F-4, F-15, F-16 and A-10, retired in 1996 and later worked as a contract simulator instructor for U.S. defense contractors, prosecutors said.

Export controls attempt to treat training as a regulated commodity rather than a personal skill, requiring licences for “defense services” even when no hardware moves. That regime is built for a world where arms exports are ships and crates; it strains when the export is a person’s accumulated know-how, delivered in a classroom, a simulator, or a briefing room. The alleged conduct in this case — travelling to China in December 2023 and remaining there until returning to the United States in early February 2026, according to prosecutors — shows how easy it is to route around paperwork once the market for instruction exists.

Prosecutors also allege Brown communicated with a co-conspirator connected to Stephen Su Bin, a Chinese national convicted in 2016 of hacking U.S. defense contractors and stealing sensitive military data. If true, it suggests a supply chain that combines stolen technical documentation with imported human instruction — a way to turn files into operational competence.

The U.S. has confronted this problem before. Prosecutors pointed to an earlier case against former U.S. Marine Corps pilot Daniel Edmund Duggan, arrested in Australia in 2022 and awaiting extradition to the United States over similar allegations. Each case signals to veterans that post-service work can become a criminal matter when the client is the wrong country — but it also signals to foreign militaries that Western training is purchasable, and that intermediaries can be hired to find it.

Brown is scheduled to make his initial court appearance Thursday in federal court in the Southern District of Indiana. The complaint alleges he described his objective as serving as an “Instructor Fighter Pilot”.

He returned to the United States in early February, prosecutors say, and was arrested weeks later.