Drunken Federal Crashed the Drone at White House

I'd say it was a sucessful mission.

Oh yea, my bad. I didn't mean to fly it over there

It was 42 degrees and raining lightly around 3 a.m. on Monday when an inebriated off-duty employee for a government intelligence agency decided it was a good time to fly his friend’s drone, a 2-foot-by-2-foot “quadcopter” that sells for hundreds of dollars and is popular among hobbyists.

But officials say the plan was foiled, perhaps by wind or a tree, when the employee — who has not been named by the Secret Service or charged with a crime — lost control of the drone as he operated it from an apartment just blocks from the White House.

He texted his friends, worried that the drone had gone down on the White House grounds, and then went to sleep.


[link to www.nytimes.com]

well i thought it was funny

for the night crew

The damage is done....the seed has been planted.

drones are bad?

DJI is now programing all new production Phantoms so they can not operate in DC airspace! I'd also guess if you update your firmware that it will also be in the update.

I'd say the event was a set up and achieved it's goal. Most of us who have drones have been expecting this push outside legislation and this was a perfect event.

It's all ok because he is one of them.

cool you have a drone?

At two feet across, the Phantom wouldn't have been spotted by a radar system designed to detect regular aircraft and missiles

great

they just gave durka durkaz excellent idea

lot of business opportunities with these too

Here is the thing, my drone it self runs about $1000, the camera is about $500 bucks, the FPV equipment onboard another $100-$200.

So when I hear someone got drunk and crashes it at 3 am on the White House lawn it sets off some red flags for me. You don't take huge risks when flying around 1500+ dollars and just loose it.

^^dude...people wreck their $20 000+ cars while drunk all the time.

feds ain't poor


there was also the guy that crashed into a geyser at yellowstone after nps issued a strict no drone policy

This drone thing was an intentional incident so they can bring the shit on radar and pass a bunch of laws restricting drones.

Saw this coming 50 light years out.

Ya but those people just replace the car and they are insured on top of it.

I could afford to buy another drone, sure. But I don't feel like throwing away money for no reason. Maybe I been flying things too long and learned respect for it a lot more then the average idiot who buys and destroys theirs in a week.

I still say it was a set up or a staged test and I don't buy the cover story. But either way the consequences of the story are very real for everyone in the hobby.

DJI did not make the federal parks unflyable because you can legally fly over the parks as long as you are not standing in them, FAA airspace. But DJI they did just make DC 100% unflyable because it IS restricts FAA airspace.


I can turn off my GPS on mine, not sure about the DJI phantom, so I could if I wanted to get past it either way. (not that I want to break the law with my drone)

they even announced new drone laws here a couple days after that.

now you need

remote pilots licence

no droning around any houses

120m max altitude.

register your droning activities.

Bump LOL

Last Edited by Chrit on 02/01/2015 04:15 AM