SA flight school accuses US of harassing it in row over training Chinese military pilots

SA flight school accuses US of harassing it in row over training Chinese military pilots

A yearslong row involving the Test Flying Academy of South Africa (TFASA) and the US is escalating.

The flight school has accused the US, based on a new Bill about the US’s relations with South Africa — the U.S.-South Africa Bilateral Relations Review Act — of trying to impair its operations because it refused to give the US government details about its clients.

It says the US is unfairly harassing it.

Review of US-SA relations

In 2022, Daily Maverick reported that TFASA, which is based in Oudtshoorn in the Western Cape and operates worldwide, was caught up in an aviation skirmish linked to various countries, most notably China and the US.

The saga involves arrests in other states and accusations of stolen military data, and hinges on pilots providing military training to China — the US is against sharing key information with China in the interests of its national security.

Last year, the US placed trade restrictions on TFASA, which was among entities “determined by the US Government to be acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States”.

There have been further developments in the situation.

On 10 February, Daily Maverick reported on legislation introduced in the US House of Representatives “to require a full review of the bilateral relationship between the United States and South Africa”.

Russia, military, politics

The document states: “In contrast to its stated stance of nonalignment, the South African Government has a history of siding with malign actors, including Hamas, a U.S. designated Foreign Terrorist Organization and a proxy of the Iranian regime, and continues to pursue closer ties with the People’s Republic of China (‘PRC’) and the Russian Federation.”

It adds that the South African government “has pursued increasingly close relations with the Russian Federation”, which it said had been accused of carrying out war crimes in Ukraine.

The document further states, “South Africa’s robust relationship with Russia spans the military and political space.”

The document lists examples of this, one of which is, “The recruitment of former United States and Nato fighter pilots to train Chinese People’s Liberation Army pilots at the Test Flying Academy of South Africa which the Department of Commerce added to the Entity List on June 12, 2023.”

On Wednesday, TFASA reacted to the US’s assertions.

It said the US Bill “suggests that TFASA plays a role in undermining democracy in South Africa, which is absurd; and in weakening the diplomatic relationship between the United States and South Africa, which TFASA rejects”.

‘Impairing our work’

TFASA said the suggestions from the US appeared to be “the latest step” in its attempts “to impair TFASA’s business operations”.

It alleged those attempts had been happening “since TFASA’s refusal to share information on its clients with the US Department of State, and other US government agencies, when approached and offered inducements to do so in 2013”.

TFASA also made it clear on Wednesday that it had no ties to the US.

“[We do] not employ any US nationals, and none of TFASA’s activities involve any US nationals, businesses, goods, transhipments, or services whatsoever,” it said.

UK takes a stand

In October 2022, the UK Ministry of Defence’s press office posted a series of messages on Twitter (now called X), hinting that there would be a crackdown on former British military pilots who provided training to members of the People’s Liberation Army of China.

The tweets implied the former pilots were putting the UK at risk.

In response, TFASA issued a statement saying the UK Ministry of Defence had never raised any objections to its operations.

TFASA on Wednesday said that following legal changes in the UK in 2023, it “decided to end the employment of all UK nationals”.

Meanwhile, on 21 October 2022, days after the UK Ministry of Defence’s Twitter posts, Daniel Edmund Duggan, a military pilot originally from the US, was arrested in Australia, where he has citizenship.

The US drove his arrest and wanted him extradited on charges relating to money laundering, violating the Arms Export Control Act, and a conspiracy to provide defence services to China.

This situation loops back to South Africa.

Arrested Australian pilot

Accusations that the US made against Duggan, which he denied, included that he conspired with people in South Africa.

Daily Maverick previously reported that the US’s indictment against Duggan alleged that three of his eight “co-conspirators”, who were not named, had links to South Africa.

The three were:

• A test flight academy based in South Africa that also had a presence in China;
• The flight academy’s South African chief executive officer; and
• A South African lawyer who was an associate of Duggan’s.

According to the indictment, “Duggan provided military training to PRC military pilots by, with and through [the South African test flight academy] in or around October-November 2010, March 2012, November 2012, and other times both known and unknown to the grand jury.”

Duggan was once a contractor for TFASA.

A TFASA spokesperson previously told Daily Maverick that Duggan “undertook one test pilot contract” for the academy in South Africa “over 10 years ago”.

The academy had not had any contact with Duggan since.

Stolen military data

TFASA also had links to another pilot, from China, who was arrested on US orders — Su Bin.

A Chinese client introduced Su to TFASA in 2009, but the relationship between him and the academy was over by 2013 (the year TFASA said the US started trying to get information about its clients, which it did not divulge).

TFASA previously told Daily Maverick that was due to “disagreements over working arrangements”.

Su was arrested in Canada in 2014 for stealing sensitive military data and was sent to the US to face related charges, where in 2016 he was sentenced to 46 months’ imprisonment.

US ‘harassment’

TFASA on Wednesday said it was one of many aviation training service providers around the world.

“These companies provide training to exactly the same standard to similar customers as TFASA, without facing the same unfair harassment from US government agencies,” it said.

“TFASA does not provide any classified military training, nor train frontline pilots, and all training is based on open-source material or material provided by clients.” DM