Airborne scofflaw and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has spent the past three months flying to campaign stops in a Cessna jet with a registration that expired Jan. 31, the New York Times reported Tuesday.
That's according to both Federal Aviation Administration records and an FAA spokesperson, who confirmed that Trump hadn't renewed the plane's three-year-long registration for the cost of a mere $5, despite a number of warnings.
The presidential hopeful's failure to register his 1997 Cessna 750 Citation X — an aircraft seating eight that has made hundreds of flights since Trump threw his hat into the election ring in June — leaves it at risk of being grounded for months. Its owner could be hit with penalties as steep as $27,500 in civil fines, $250,000 in criminal fines, and imprisonment for as long as three years, the FAA told the New York Times. (This outcome is unlikely, but his adversaries can still dream.)
Trump can still fly on a private charter or the four other registered planes he owns and has used as backdrops at rallies.
But it's the sleek Cessna jet that the real estate magnate typically takes when he has to land at smaller airports. On Friday, the plane flew to Plattsburgh, N.Y. and on Monday, it delivered the Trump entourage from LaGuardia Airport to Buffalo.
Trump has a greater than 99 percent chance of winning the New York primary election Tuesday, as per FiveThirtyEight's predictions.
