Scots RAF gunner Corrie McKeague had "slept under bin bags" on a previous night out using them "almost like a blanket" before he vanished on a night out in 2016, an inquest heard.
The hearing into the 23-year-old's death was told the airman was a "nightmare on the drink" and had downed a bottle of red wine in 17 seconds on one occasion.
After a night out in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, on September 24, 2016, McKeague disappeared in the early hours of the morning.
Police believe that the serviceman, who was from Dunfermline and stationed at RAF Honington, climbed into a bin which was then tipped into a waste lorry.
McKeague's best friend Paul Robb, who served with him in the RAF, told an inquest in Ipswich that McKeague said he slept under bin bags following a night out in Lichfield, Staffordshire, in 2014.
He said McKeague had been out drinking when they were there on a medic course.
Robb said: "He told me he slept under some bin bags.
"I can't remember if he described them being full of rubbish, outside a coffee shop or something like that. Round the back where the bin area was.
"He described using them almost like a blanket to stay warm."
He said that on a previous night out at a Nando's restaurant, McKeague "downed a whole bottle of red wine in 17 seconds", adding: "He had a capability of doing things like that."
In his witness statement, Robb detailed how McKeague had previously passed out through drink and awoken the following morning in the toilets of a McDonald's restaurant in Bury St Edmunds, and on a separate occasion fell asleep on a bench outside a Tesco store in the town.
He said that on a stag do in Liverpool in August 2016, McKeague climbed up a drainpipe and through a window of the accommodation where he was staying, getting into a room that was not his and falling asleep there.
In his witness statement, Robb said: "Corrie had always been extreme with his drinking and there were no half measures with Corrie."
He described McKeague's mental state as "up and down", adding: "He had periods of highs and periods of lows."
He said McKeague had previously received counselling through a mental health team that assists the RAF, and had previously been prescribed antidepressants.
McKeague's former line manager Sergeant Ross Stevenson said: "He's a friendly lad, cheeky I would say, but he was a good laugh, he was capable, he just needed channelling, I would say."
In his witness statement he said that McKeague was a "nightmare on the drink" and "he liked to be steaming".
Sgt Stevenson said that on a previous occasion he had seen McKeague walking along a road, one mile from the airbase, at around 10am and stopped his vehicle to give him a lift.
"Corrie was walking along the verge of the road and still wearing the clothes from the night before," Sgt Stevenson said, adding: "Presumably he had been on a night out."
Sgt Stevenson said that McKeague had previously asked for help with his finances, and asked for his card to be kept in a locked box for a month.
"He came to us asking for help as he had no money for food or anything," he said.
He said the base arranged for meal tickets for him to ensure he was fed and discussed how to pay off money he owed.
William Hook, the doorman at Flex nightclub who asked McKeague to leave in the early hours of Saturday September 24, said that McKeague arrived at the club between 11pm and midnight on the Friday.
He said: "There was nothing out of the ordinary to keep a special eye on him."
Hook said that when he saw McKeague later, around 1am, "he struggled to walk without holding onto anything around him - that was the point I clocked him, I suppose".
He continued: "I said: 'I think you've had enough mate, shall we go out the front?"'
The doorman said McKeague co-operated and left the venue, and he described it as an "easy ejection".
Hook said: "there was no worry about him".
"He was a popular lad around the town, he knew a lot of people who were out, he would go round groups of people speaking to groups of people and saying hello to staff," he said.
US Air Force mechanic Kentron Manning, who was based at RAF Mildenhall at the time, said in a statement that he saw McKeague in the Pizza Mama Mia takeaway in the early hours of September 24
Manning said he offered to share his taxi home with McKeague, but "he said 'no' and he was going to walk back to his base".
The inquest, due to last for up to four weeks, continues.
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