Originally Posted by
steveinindy
If you actually get a "real" investigator on scene, things tend to get fairly well investigated since the NTSB guys enjoy their work and are conscientious. When you are dealing with whomever lost the rock-paper-scissors match at the local FSDO to decide who has to go through the motions, then you tend to run into a problem. This is based on being on quite a few crash scenes personally in the course of my research. Letting an often disinterested and probably relatively uneducated government functionary handle it is like allowing an elected coroner whose day job is being a mechanic or accountant actually do the autopsies for that jurisdiction. It's a bad idea because while the really obvious things probably will get noticed, the subtle but vital findings are not caught or will be misinterpreted by the inexperienced/uneducated eye.