Former U student from China given 6-month prison term for taking drone photos over naval shipyard

A Chinese national who attended the University of Minnesota received a six-month prison term for flying a drone over a highly secure naval shipbuilding complex in Virginia and taking photos and videos in what the U.S. Justice Department considered an act of espionage.

Fengyun Shi, 26, was sentenced Oct. 2 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia after pleading guilty to two misdemeanor counts of use of aircraft for the unlawful photographing of a designated installation without authorization in connection with his drone flying in January above Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) in Norfolk.

Shi, a U graduate student who studied agricultural engineering from January 2021 until December 2023, was also ordered to be on court supervision for one year after his release as part of his sentence under a World War II-era statute that is part of the Espionage Act.

Shaoming Cheng, Shi’s attorney, argued in a court filing one day before sentencing that his client “took several pictures of [NNS] without knowing those pictures may contain sensitive information.”

In asking for leniency at sentencing because “this incident is accidental in nature,” Cheng added that Shi was “not aware of the law and ... believes it is cool and interesting to take pictures with different views. [He had] no intent to obtain or transfer sensitive information to any foreign country.”

According to his plea agreement:

Shi bought the drone on Jan. 3 and arrived in Norfolk the next day from San Francisco. He flew the drone over BAE Systems Shipyard on Jan. 5, but did not take any photos.

On Jan. 6, Shi’s drone got stuck in a tree near NNS and he asked someone who lived nearby to help him get it down. The resident asked Shi where he was from, and he replied China. The resident then called police.

Shi told police he was in the area while on break from his graduate studies but failed to explain why he was flying the drone in inclement weather.

Police directed him to contact the Fire Department for help. Instead, Shi drove his rental car back to Norfolk International Airport, rode an Amtrak train to Washington, D.C., and took a flight 25 hours later for the California Bay Area.

Federal law enforcement arrested him on Jan. 18 before he could board a one-way flight to China.

The drone fell from the tree on Jan. 7 onto a resident’s lawn, and was retrieved the next day by members of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Investigators retrieved from the drone photos and videos of vessels either intended for use or dry-docked by the U.S. Navy.

The security manager for Newport News Shipbuilding wrote to the court at sentencing that the facility builds and maintains Navy aircraft carriers and submarines, and refuels nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

“Much of the work on and several of the components for these naval programs are classified at various levels all the way to Top Secret,” said the filing from Joshua Quitaro. “Making sure the airspace is secure from unauthorized private drone flights such as this one in Mr. Shi’s case is of critical importance for [the shipyard’s] continued work for the U.S. Navy.”

Quitaro added that “this is the first incident I am aware of where a private individual has flown a drone over the [shipyard] without authorization and secured photographs of the facility.”

Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported that drones from an unknown source flew over restricted air space above Langley Air Force Base, 11 miles north of NNS, on Virginia’s Atlantic coast for 17 nights in December.

The Journal reported that Air Force Gen. Mark Kelly, citing information he received from another U.S. official, said the drones were detected nightly for roughly 45 minutes to an hour after sunset.

While the origin of the drones was unknown, suspicions have focused on them coming from U.S. adversaries Russia or China, the Journal report continued.

The drones headed south toward Norfolk and over an area that includes the home base for the Navy’s SEAL Team Six and Naval Station Norfolk, the world’s largest naval port, according to the Journal.

In early 2023, a three-week high-stakes drama unfolded with the discovery of a suspected Chinese spy balloon transiting much of the United States.

The U.S. labeled the balloon a military craft and shot it down with a missile. It recovered what it said was sophisticated surveillance equipment. China responded angrily, saying it was only a weather balloon that had blown off course and called its downing a major overreaction.

This report contains information from the Associated Press.