By most accounts, John Michael Dial is not a bad helicopter pilot.
But he neglected what he may think of as niceties. He flew without a pilot’s license and under assumed names.
He crash-landed in Sacramento federal court, where he was sentenced Thursday to two years in prison on his July guilty plea to aggravated identify theft.
Dial, 58, did things like making false statements to the Federal Aviation Administration and forging a signature on a U.S. passport, all while using the names of actual people – just not his own.