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Man was 'drinking while droning' in White House drone crash

Posted at 5:20 PM, Jan 27, 2015
and last updated 2015-01-27 20:13:25-05

A man who crashed a quadcopter drone on the White House grounds early Monday morning was drinking while droning.

The unnamed man, who NBC News reports is a government employee with the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, was off duty at the time.

The man fired up a friend’s drone and flew it from an apartment building after drinking, The New York Times reports. He lost sight of it at around 3 a.m. and went to bed anxious about where it might have crashed.

The next morning, he awoke to news reports that the White House was in lockdown and contacted authorities.

The Secret Service confirmed that a man self-reported a drone crash at 9:30 a.m. President Obama was overseas in India at the time.

The agency, which was embarrassed by several recent White House security breaches, is investigating the incident.

Find out more about the crash in this Newsy video:

Gavin Stern is a national digital producer for the Scripps National Desk.