Thankfully, the technology to combat rogue drones is getting better

FOR SOMETHING weighing only a few kilograms and costing less than $2,000, even for a sophisticated model, a small consumer drone can cause an awful lot of havoc. On January 22nd flights in and out of Newark airport, near New York, were suspended temporarily after reports of a drone being aloft nearby. On January 8th Heathrow, London’s biggest airport, also shut briefly because of a drone sighting. And in the busy run-up to Christmas London’s second airport, Gatwick, was closed for more than 36 hours after drones were spotted flying near its runway. EasyJet, the biggest operator at Gatwick, said this week that the grounding of flights had cost it £15m ($19m).Airport incursions are not the only danger posed by drones. A growing number of close drone encounters are being reported by airline pilots. On December 12th a Boeing 737 belonging to Aeromexico managed to land safely at Tijuana after its nose was badly damaged in a collision with what may have been a drone. Elsewhere, drones are being used to smuggle goods across borders, drugs into prisons, to attack military bases with explosives and in assassination attempts, like that which took place last August on Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela.