Man sentenced in Iowa for flying plane without a license

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — A New Mexico man has been sentenced in Iowa to two years’ probation and fined $5,000 for flying a single-engine plane in 2018 without a license, which was discovered when he was forced to make an emergency landing. Federal prosecutors for Iowa say 44-year-old Keith Alexander Thomas, of Portales, New Mexico, was sentenced in Cedar Rapid’s federal court on Wednesday after he pleased guilty in April to a single count of operating as an airman without a airman certificate. Prosecutors say Thomas had agreed to fly the newly-purchased Cessna from Wisconsin to New Mexico, even though he didn’t have a pilot’s license. Prosecutors say the plane went into engine failure over Iowa, and Thomas made an emergency landing in Waterloo. No one was hurt.