US Flight schools training Chinese pilots: Senator Banks
Washington: A senior Republican senator has warned US aviation security authorities that American flight schools are training Chinese nationals in ways that could indirectly support Beijing’s military ambitions.
Senator Jim Banks said in a letter to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) that the issue raises national security concerns, citing China’s strategy of “Military-Civil Fusion (MCF), which deliberately erases lines between the military and the commercial.”
He cautioned that this approach has “helped Chinese enterprises, both state-owned and nominally private, to capture significant global market share in advanced industries, while also concentrating the party’s capacity to mobilize national resources in times of emergency and war.”
Banks pointed to China’s growing demand for trained pilots as a key driver behind the trend.
China will require 130,000 commercial and general aviation pilots by 2043. The shortage extends to its military, where training timelines have been shortened, and recruitment expanded to meet demand, the Senator said in the letter.
Investigative reporting cited in the letter said China needs roughly 5,000 pilot cadets annually, while its domestic institutions can produce only about 1,200. As a result, many trainees are turning to flight schools in the United States.
The senator highlighted specific examples, including the AeroGuard Flight Training Center in Arizona, which has partnerships with Chinese-linked aviation entities. Chinese state media have reported that nearly two-thirds of its students are Chinese nationals. Another facility in California, the Sierra Academy of Aeronautics, is said to train hundreds of Chinese pilots each year.
A Sierra Academy executive was quoted as saying, “Because Sierra Academy has been working with the Chinese government, institutions, airlines – we have all the right contacts to put this program in place.”
Banks argued that even if many trainees pursue civilian careers, China’s state-driven model makes it difficult to separate civilian and military outcomes. “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,” he said.
He urged the TSA to tighten its vetting process under the Flight Training Security Programme, which currently screens foreign applicants using immigration records, watchlists and criminal history. Banks said the “scale of the threat posed by the CCP and other foreign adversaries clearly warrants consideration as an additional factor.”
He called on the agency to update the programme to block individuals from “foreign adversary nations, such as China,” from accessing US flight training.
“We must ensure that American flight training programmes serve American interests—not Xi Jinping’s dreams,” he said.