Thousands of Chinese Pilots Trained at American Flight Schools: Peter Schweizer
🔴 WATCH THE FULL EPISODE: https://ept.ms/4qYlb5XShow more “We are training thousands of pilots in the United States from China—many of whom are going to be flying for the PLA. That to me was shocking,” says investigative journalist Peter Schweizer, author of “The Invisible Coup.”
When you look at the websites of certain American flight schools, 90% to 95% of the students there are Chinese nationals, he says.
China badly needs pilots, both military and civilian, so the Chinese government subsidizes the cost for its citizens to train in America, Schweizer says.
“It's $90,000 a year, cash in advance. These schools get it, and the pilots come and train here. It's basic flight training.”
After finishing their flight training in the US, the pilots return to China and, he says, the best of them continue their training on advanced PLA military aircraft in China. “Our pilots will be facing those pilots,” Schweizer says. Show less
I think the most shocking is because it is so brazen and it's so visual and it's so visible is the training of Chinese pilots in the United States.
And this is something that, you know, you go back to 9-11.
I'm old enough to remember 9-11 vividly.
And we woke up to the fact after, you know, the dust settled and we buried the dead that people from terrorist countries had come here and gone to flight schools.
And remember famously, they didn't want to learn how to land.
They only wanted to learn how to fly.
So they exploited our flight schools and we shut that down.
We said, you know, we're going to do screening.
If you're from certain regions of the world, you know, where there might be a jihadist influence, you can't go to flight schools.
And then to wake up to the fact that we are training thousands of pilots in the United States from China, many of whom are going to be flying for the PLA.
That to me was shocking because when you go on the website of these flight schools, you know, you see 90, 95% of the students there are Chinese nationals.
That one probably for its brazen and in my mind, obvious nature.
And then so, okay, explain how this works because this is not the military doing the training, obviously, right?
Well, maybe not obviously, but hopefully, obviously.
Right.
But so how does it work?
How is it that private aviation schools are training military pilots?
So what happens is these training schools in the United States, they obviously want students and the tuition is expensive.
It's $90,000 for basically a year of training.
So the Chinese government has gone to these flight schools and China has a pilot problem because they need, according to their estimates, about 5,000 pilots a year, military and civilian.
But they can only train about 1,250 because the military restricts airspace usage in China.
So they have to get them trained somewhere and they get them trained in the United States.
And so what happens is the Chinese government pays the tuition.
It's $90,000 a year, cash in advance.
These schools get it.
And the pilots come and train here.
It's basic flight training.
When they go back to China, the cream of the crop go to the PLA for more advanced training.
So what you're, you know, becoming a pilot's a lot like becoming an athlete.
You have to, you crawl, then you learn to walk, and then you learn to run.
Well, we're teaching them to walk.
We're giving them the basic flight training.
And we should not underestimate that.
I mean, this is a year-long process.
You're learning the basics of flight training.
They wouldn't be learning this elsewhere.
And the best of the pilots that are trained here are going to be training on advanced military aircraft in China.
And our pilots will be facing those pilots.
So to me, that was shocking because of its brazen nature.
And it just seems to me kind of a slam dunk that we should say, you know, we're not going to do this.