• Dave English started the topic Group logo of Investigator’s Corner"I saw it with my own eyes" in the forum Investigator's Corner 9 years ago

    Hello:

    Looks like you’ve spent a lot of time building a framework here. Let’s see if we can bring it to life.

    I recently had a fun piece of data analysis published, and am interested in other people’s ideas for extending the research.

    “Reliability of Eyewitness Reports to a Major Aviation Accident.” The (free) PDF is online at http://commons.erau.edu/ijaaa/vol1/iss4/9/

    It’s not news that eyewitness reports have low reliability and validity. But maybe it is news that you can demonstrate that for a wide-body airliner falling out of the sky on a clear day.

    Thoughts? Ideas?

    Formal Abstract
    There is a paucity of studies on the reliability of eyewitness reports to aviation crashes. We examine witness statements to a widely observed major airline accident to determine if reported accident investigator distrust of details in eyewitness reports is supported by empirical evidence. The extensive archival witness record (N > 300) of a wide-body airliner crash in clear daylight conditions is subjected to statistical analysis to test eyewitness reliability. Even with over 200 witnesses within a three square kilometre (1.6 square mile) area answering a binary observation question, the variance is sometimes high enough to preclude forming statistically significant conclusions about a basic large-scale event. There is no statistical difference between the distributions of witnesses that reported diametrically opposed observations; and no discernible geographic pattern, preferred orientation or optimum viewing distance. These results support the current reported practice of placing low value to eyewitness accounts of aircraft crashes.

    • Dave – You bring up good points about witnesses. Some investigators don’t use witness statements, others take everything a witness says as fact. I have always used witness statements as either a starting point to look and verify certain factual information developed from a flight data recorder, the wreckage or other evidence. Witness observations can be very useful if the information they provide can be vetted with other evidence.

      Thanks for providing the link to the report.