Teso told the crowd that he used flight-management hardware that he bought on eBay and publicly available flight-simulator software that contains at least some of the same computer coding as real flight software.

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"The risk is then clear to the end user, and they can then run a second simulator showing how alternative software can be used to mitigate the risk, " explained Mr Wilkinson.

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In 2003 Schneider decided to invest in a fleet-wide "tactical planning simulator" that would use software algorithms to mimic the decision making of human dispatchers on an inhumanly large scale.

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