The U.S. Senate is raising fresh concerns about Chinese pilots training in U.S. flight schools as potential national security risks and an avenue for an adversary’s military to gain vital insights into U.S. aviation practices.

In a letter this month, Senator Jim Banks, R-Ind., who sits on the Armed Services Committee, asked the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to revise its guidelines to exclude any prospective pilots from “foreign adversary nations” from studying in American flight schools. 

On 9/11, Mohamed Atta, an Egyptian citizen, was the pilot who flew American Airlines flight number 11 into the Trade Center's North Tower. Marwan Alshehhi, a citizen of the United Arab Emirates, crashed United Airlines flight number 35 into the South Tower. Both took lessons at Huffman Aviation International, a small flight training school in Venice, Florida.

Calls to update the Flight Training Security Program

“While TSA currently assesses risk based on immigration records, terror watchlists, and criminal history, the scale of the threat posed by the CCP and other foreign adversaries clearly warrants consideration as an additional factor,” Banks wrote. 

“Therefore, I respectfully request that TSA update the Flight Training Security Program to preclude individuals from foreign adversary nations, such as China, from attending flight training schools in the United States,” he added.

The exact number of Chinese flight students, called cadets, currently enrolled in U.S. flight schools is not known. However, Aeroguard, one such flight school in Phoenix, Arizona, reportedly hosts 360 Chinese students out of the school’s total capacity of 500, according to China Daily. 

Under a law passed shortly after 9/11, Congress assigned responsibility to the Secretary of Homeland Security to vet foreign nationals that want to study in U.S. flight schools and to exclude those that were potential national security threats. Several of the 9/11 hijackers had sought out training at American flight schools before the deadly attack. 

The program, now known as the Flight Training Security Program, is administered by TSA under the Department of Homeland Security. 

TSA did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News about Senator Banks’ concerns or whether the agency is considering any reforms to its regulations. 

The evidence suggests that China’s aviation industry, both civilian and military, is hungry for Western expertise. The U.S. Trade Administration says that China’s rebounding economy as it recovers from the COVID-19-era downturn, is projected to encounter increased pilot shortages. This stems from the growing demand from an expanding middle class and growing commercial airline fleets. 

China's "Military-Civil Fusion" strategy

“According to a market forecast from one of the world’s leading aviation companies, China is projected to need approximately 130,000 commercial and general aviation pilots by 2043 to meet this growing demand,” the U.S. agency said. 

Senator Banks warned the TSA that training pilots, even if they are purportedly destined to fly civilian aircraft, still gives China the option to exploit those future pilots for military benefits in the future. 

Specifically, the senator, who has long been a hawkish voice on the threats posed to the United States by the Chinese Communist Party, says that the government’s Military-Civil Fusion strategy shows that it fully intends to exploit any knowledge or expertise for future military ends.  

Under its Military-Civil Fusion strategy, the CCP has repeatedly boosted private, civilian industries with the knowledge that certain technologies and experience would be valuable for a potential future conflict.    

“Each Chinese citizen trained at an American flight school helps break through China’s pilot bottleneck. While many of these students will go on to civilian and not military careers, the Chinese Communist Party, through its Military-Civil Fusion strategy, has foreclosed our ability to view this training with the benefit of a doubt,” Banks wrote in a letter to the Deputy Administrator of TSA last week.  

“The more Chinese citizens there are with aviation training, the more options the Chinese military has to recruit pilots and instructors for its malign purposes,” the Indiana GOP senator continued. 

You can read the letter below: 

At the same time that Chinese commercial aviation students are seeking out training at U.S. flight schools, China has also sought to recruit ex-military pilots from across the U.S. and Europe to train People’s Liberation Army Air Force pilots for future combat. 

This recruitment effort, which has drawn increased scrutiny from Western security agencies, involves substantial financial incentives offered to former military personnel, often through front companies or aviation consulting firms. For example, the U.S. Justice Department has brought charges in recent years against individuals involved in schemes to recruit former U.S. military pilots to train Chinese aviators. 

Just last month, the Justice Department charged former Air Force pilot Gerald Eddie Brown, Jr. with “providing and conspiring to provide defense services to Chinese military pilots without authorization,” a violation of the Arms Export Control Act. Brown, prosecutors allege, traveled to China in December 2023 and remained there for more than two years. During his stay in the country, prosecutors say Brown answered questions about the U.S. Air Force and briefed Chinese air force members on his background. That case is ongoing, and the public docket shows no plea having been entered at this time.

Similarly, defense officials in the United Kingdom and Australia have issued warnings and implemented new laws to curb attempts by China to hire their own former military aviators. 

In 2024, the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand issued a joint intelligence bulletin warning that China continues to target both current and former military members from within the NATO alliance to help fortify its own military capabilities.