They cant be all wrong!
Oh yes they can! Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable.
The ATSB data you cite refers to cases where the person on the ground saw an aircraft crash, or an aircraft in trouble, AND THEN raised the alarm.
lynw and I are referring to cases like this one (MH370), where the people on the ground ("witnesses") heard about the accident via the media, then came forward, or were contacted by authorities some other way.
As the TWA800 accident painfully showed, how a witness stores a memory of something they see, then recalls that memory, is very much subject to a whole lot of interpretation.
Nobody is saying these witnesses are being dishonest. It is just that there are
significant limitations to the usefulness of eyewitness accounts.