And some of the very worse witnesses are fellow aviators. Remember during an accident investigators course we were shown a film of an aircraft taking off and subsequently crashing, and were asked questions as "expert" witnesses.
Type of aircraft? Answer F-86, Wrong - actually a G91
That is very true, sometimes ever 'expert' witnesses get it wrong. In the NTSB Aircraft Accident investigation school I attended, the class was shown a video. It was a video of an midget aircraft class air race in Reno, Nevada.
We were only told to watch the video, nothing else was said, after watching the video for about three minutes, as the group of racing aircraft entered a pylon turn, a wing came off one of the aircraft. The instructor immediately stopped the video and asked, "Which wing separated from the aircraft?"
Three fourths of the class got it wrong.
Now admittedly the entire class was not composed of pilots, actually very few of the class were pilots, but all were aviation professionals. As it turned out, I was the only pilot that got the correct wing the first time.
The point I was attempting to make is, if an accident was witnessed by a school teacher, a policeman and an active professional pilot with years of experience, the testimony of the professional pilot would be given a little more credit. Never the less, all three statements would be investigated.
Oh, believe it nor not, the pilot survived the accident.