A small unmanned aircraft crashed on to the White House lawn early on Monday morning, triggering a lockdown of the building and presenting the type of security breach that could be a serious setback for the commercial use of drones.
The secret service said that the two-foot-wide “quad-copter” flew on to the White House grounds at around 3am and crashed shortly afterwards. A man who contacted the agency voluntarily about the incident was being questioned on Monday afternoon.
With the secret service already on edge after a series of other security breaches at the White House, the incident looks likely to exacerbate the concerns about privacy and safety issues that can arise from operating drones in commercial airspace.