College student from China charged with illegally taking photos of US military planes

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A college student from China has been charged with illegally taking photos of U.S. military planes in Nebraska during a multistate road trip that included a stop at an Air Force base in South Dakota.

Tianrui Liang, 21, was arrested April 7 at a New York airport while trying to leave the U.S. for Glasgow, Scotland, where he attends school, the FBI said in a court filing.

Liang admitted that he got out of a car on a public road in late March and took photos of an RC-135, a reconnaissance aircraft, and an E-4B at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, the FBI said.

The E-4B, known as the “Nightwatch”, can serve as an airborne command center for a president and military officials in times of emergency, according to the Air Force.

The FBI said it's illegal to photograph or sketch defense installations without approval. Images of both planes are available online.

Liang told investigators that it was ”legal to take pictures of the sky, but he knew it was illegal to take pictures of the planes on the ground," the FBI said. He said they were for his personal collection, the FBI said.

Liang's attorney, Jeff Thomas, declined to comment Tuesday. Liang has not appeared yet in federal court in Omaha.

Liang flew to Vancouver, British Columbia, in Canada on March 26 and met a friend who is a college student in New York, the FBI said. They drove across the U.S. border in Washington state before Liang drove alone to see Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, according to the affidavit. The FBI said he was also interested in going to Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma.

Other cases involving military sites have been filed against college students from China.

Five men were charged with lying and trying to cover their tracks after they were confronted in the dark in 2023 near a Michigan military site where thousands of people had gathered for drills. They graduated from the University of Michigan and apparently returned to China months before they were charged and have never appeared in court.

In 2020, two Chinese nationals who were pursuing master’s degrees at the University of Michigan were sentenced to prison for illegally taking photographs at a naval air station in Key West, Florida.