L-Ne · Historical Source Library

News Source Record

# News Source Record

**L-Ne / Open-source news extract** — Original media coverage of unmanned aerial systems.

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Collection date | 26 January 2015 |
| Platform | Quiet Systems |
| Data label | Open-source news record // LRRK collection product |
| Handling | Public-source material. Image rights require separate verification before publication. |
| Scale | National |
| Language | English |
| Terms matched | drone; drones; DJI Phantom; quadcopter; Aerial UAV Drone Quadcopter |

## Bibliographic

| Field | Value |
| Outlet | The New York Times |
| Title | A Drone, Too Small for Radar to Detect, Rattles the White House |
| Dateline | WASHINGTON — 26 January 2015 — Michael S. Schmidt and Michael D. Shear (print 27 January 2015, A1) |
| First publisher | yes |
| Original URL | https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/27/us/white-house-drone.html |
| Archive URL | https://web.archive.org/web/20150128000000/https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/27/us/white-house-drone.html |
| Dedup key | 2015-01-26|nytimes|white-house-south-lawn-dji-phantom |
| Source grade | A1 |

## Record

**Verified extract — [Fact — A1]** Schmidt and Shear established that White House radar designed for planes, missiles and large drones failed to pick up a small drone that crashed into a tree on the South Lawn around 3 a.m. Monday. The craft was about two feet in diameter and about two pounds, flown recreationally by an unidentified government employee who lost control. A Secret Service officer heard and observed it but could not bring it down before it crossed the fence. It was too small and low for radar and could be confused with a large bird. A Secret Service photo showed a partly broken DJI Phantom Aerial UAV Drone Quadcopter (Amazon prices from $479; HD-camera models to $1,258). The operator called at about 9:30 a.m. and cooperated. Both Obama daughters were home; the President was in India. Federal law already made drone flight in Washington illegal. A DHS conference in Arlington days earlier had displayed a DJI Phantom with three pounds of fake explosives. Daniel Herbert reported an NCTC official calling the Phantom the terrorist's drone of choice; NCTC disputed his characterization. Droneshield's Brian Hearing said radar is effectively useless for such small drones and that GPS could be programmed to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

**Kinematic object.** DJI Phantom quadcopter (about 2 ft, about 2 lb) that crossed the White House fence and hit a tree.

**Coverage frame.** incident

## Source integrity

- Why this is treated as an original: NYT original with Secret Service photo, named officials, and the radar-failure finding. Live page 403'd; a January 2015 Wayback snapshot of the same URL was fetched.
- Wire reprint status: Not a wire reprint. AP video is supplementary; facts are NYT-reported.
- What was excluded: 27 January NGA employer identification (later story).

## LRRK relevance

Watch / Control Fabric / Kestrel. Sense-Move-Act consumer quadcopter defeating executive-compound radar; geofence and jammer limits discussed on the page.

*LRRK — security assurance for systems that sense, move, and act.*

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