The White House was temporarily on lockdown on Monday after a “quad copter” drone crashed on the premises.
The secret service said that an officer saw the drone flying at low altitude around 3am on Monday before it crashed on the south-east side of the White House complex.
The “quad copter” is approximately 2ft in diameter and the complex was immediately put on lockdown until the drone was “examined and cleared”.
JUST IN - photo of the drone that crashed on the White House grounds overnight pic.twitter.com/8wnOiKQlRi
— Vaughn Sterling (@vplus) January 26, 2015
An anonymous US official told the AP that the drone operator contacted the secret service to say that he did not mean to fly the drone over the White House. The Washington DC resident is cooperating with investigators and told the agency that he was using the device recreationally, according to the official.
The New York Times said the man is a government employee.
US secret service agents, already under pressure following recent breaches at the home of the first family, dug around through bushes on the premises following the early-morning security shutdown while Barack and Michelle Obama were travelling in India.
The White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, told reporters in New Delhi that “early indications are that it does not pose any sort of ongoing threat to anybody at the White House.”
Though drones have been tied to warfare, hobbyists can easily obtain unmanned aerial vehicles for recreational or professional purposes. CNN announced earlier this month that it would be experimenting with camera-bearing drones for news gathering, joining movie studios and other commercial enterprises getting a foothold in the market for the increasingly prevalent technology.
Emergency vehicles surrounded the White House on Monday and the perimeter was locked down until about 5am. Agents were scattered across the property, scouring the lawn on a drizzly Monday morning.
More than a dozen agents searching WH north lawn, w/ flashlights into the bushes pic.twitter.com/iSdknDcBBK
— Nedra Pickler (@nedrapickler) January 26, 2015
Recent incidents at the White House have led to heavy criticism of the agency, which is responsible for protecting the first family, other US politicians and foreign dignitaries. The secret service is part of the Homeland Security department, which released an internal report in November showing that staff had received poor training.
In September 2014, a Texas man armed with a knife sprinted into the White House after scaling a fence. A week earlier, the secret service had apprehended a man who also jumped the fence.
The breaches prompted an independent panel to investigate the secret service and it recommended that homeland security officials hire a new director from outside the agency. Former director Julia Pierson was forced to resign last year and four executives were recently reassigned in a wholesale management overhaul.
It is unclear whether Malia and Sasha Obama were at home when the device was discovered. Michelle Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson, also lives at the White House.
