South Carolina National Guard officials lifted the suspension of eight Apache pilots on Friday, ending a review that began after the group flew low over the South Carolina coast on July Fourth. The reversal came hours after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth publicly said the matter should be fixed.
The pilots, members of the South Carolina National Guard’s Alpha 1-151 Attack Battalion, were part of a flyover during the annual Salute from the Shore event. Maj. Lisa Allen said they were temporarily suspended shortly after the flight, while the Guard reviewed the flight profile. By Friday, that review was complete and the pilots were back on duty in a flying capacity.
The timing mattered because the case had already moved far beyond a local personnel matter. The low flyover drew national scrutiny after video spread online, and lawmakers in South Carolina joined the backlash. On Thursday, Russell Fry called for the review to be dropped and the pilots restored immediately, while Henry McMaster criticized the suspension on X, arguing the pilots should be celebrated, not sanctioned.
The Guard said the suspension was never meant as punishment. It described the move as a routine administrative step whenever a flight profile is under review, and said the soldiers were continuing regular daily duties in a non-flying role while that process played out. But Hegseth treated the episode as one that should be undone, posting on Thursday evening, “We’ll fix this. Carry on, Patriots,” before Sean Parnell announced Friday that the suspension of all involved South Carolina pilots had been lifted.
That friction is what made the story travel. The public message from the Guard was that the pilots were simply in review; the public message from Hegseth and his allies was that the punishment never should have happened. Hegseth had intervened before, too, in late March, when two Apache helicopters were flagged for flying low and hovering near Kid Rock’s Nashville house, and that separate suspension was rolled back just hours after it was announced.
For now, the question left hanging is not whether the pilots are flying again. It is what, if anything, the review found about the low-profile flight that set off the backlash in the first place. The Guard said on Friday the review was complete, and Hegseth summed up the outcome in his own words: “Pilots suspension LIFTED. No punishment. No investigation. Carry on, patriots,”
