NBC News’ Brian Williams is facing a barrage of questions and contradictory claims over his story of having been aboard a helicopter downed by rocket fire during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, parts of which appear to be true.
Evidence that Williams may not have been totally off-base on one claim: The Chinook he and his news crew were riding reportedly took small arms fire during the offensive, according to the man who allegedly piloted the aircraft, former Chief Warrant Officer Rich Krell.
But Krell also said he was never forced to land, contradicting parts of Williams’ version of events. (Another helicopter was forced down at the time.)
“Some of things he’s said are not true. But some of the things they’re saying against him are not true either,” Krell told CNN, adding that there were three helicopters flying in close formation, not four as Williams said. “One of the birds broke down, so we were a flight of three. We were hauling metal bridges.”
Krell said Williams and three other NBC News employees were riding in the back of his Chinook, adding that Williams likely couldn’t have seen the RPG attack that the lead helicopter suffered. Still, he added later in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, it’s possible the NBC News employees knew of the firefight because the Chinnook’s gunner was returning fire.
And to the question of whether Krell’s chopper took any small arms damage, the pilot told Tapper: “It struck the belly up in the forward cabin area and one, two other side hits but it didn’t cause any major damage, just some minor damage to electronic components.”
He said that after the lead helicopter came under rocket fire, the trio took evasive maneuvers, with Williams’ helicopter breaking off to deliver its payload, meeting up with the other two helicopters about 45 minutes later.
“Yeah, he messed up some things and said some things he shouldn’t have. I [first] heard it a few years ago. … Actually one of my flight engineers said, ‘Did you hear him say that? Wasn’t he on our bird?’” he said.
Krell’s comments come on the heels of a Stars and Stripes report Wednesday that Williams admitted he may have “misremembered” what happened in Iraq. As far back as 2003 and as recently as last week, Williams said he was aboard a helicopter that was badly damaged by an RPG.
Members of the 159th Aviation Regiment’s Chinook told Stars and Stripes the newsman was nowhere near the danger. In fact, they said, he showed up about 60 minutes after the fact.
“It was something personal for us that was kind of life-changing for me. I’ve know how lucky I was to survive it,” flight engineer Lance Reynolds told Stars and Stripes. “It felt like a personal experience that someone else wanted to participate in and didn’t deserve to participate in.”
The pushback on Williams’ story began last week after he said during a tribute to a now-retired soldier who provided ground security for the choppers that night: “The story actually started with a terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of Iraq when the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG. Our traveling NBC News team was rescued, surrounded and kept alive by an armor mechanized platoon from the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry.”
Shortly after NBC News uploaded Williams’ Friday remarks to Facebook, Reynolds responded, writing: “Sorry dude, I don’t remember you being on my aircraft. I do remember you walking up about an hour after we had landed to ask me what had happened.”
“[W]e never came under direct enemy fire to the aircraft,” flight engineer Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Miller told Stars and Stripes.
Williams later apologized on Facebook for getting the details of the story wrong. He also addressed the issue on his show Wednesday.
“In a broadcast last week in an effort to honor and thank a veteran who protected me and so many others after a ground fire incident in the desert during the Iraq War invasion. I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago,” Williams said Wednesday evening. “I want to apologize. I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by RPG fire. I was instead in a following aircraft. We all landed after the ground fire incident and spent two harrowing nights in a sandstorm in the Iraq desert.
“It did not take long to hear from some brave men and women in the aircrews who were also in that desert,” he added. “This was a bungled attempt by me to thank one special veteran, and by extension our brave military men and women, veterans everywhere, those who have served while I did not. I hope they know they have my greatest respect and also now my apology.”
However, contrary to the wording of Williams’ apology, last week wasn’t a one-time “bungling” of the details of what happened in Iraq. He has been telling variations of this story since 2003, with the details become bolder and more daring.
First, in 2003, NBC News published the headline: “Target Iraq: Helicopter NBC’s Brian Williams Was Riding In Comes Under Fire.”
Then, in 2005, Williams reportedly told a variation of the story at a Veterans Day ceremony in New Canaan, Ct., telling his audience that his “helicopter took small arms fire and was forced to land.”
Later, in 2007, Williams regaled Gen. David Petraeus with yet another variation of the story, saying: “[A]t the start of the war, when I was flying in a Chinook with General Downing, that helicopter was shot at by a farmer.”
And in an interview in 2013 with David Letterman, Williams again repeated the story, but this time, the details were even more vivid and harrowing.
“We were going to drop some bridge portions across the Euphrates so the third infantry could cross on them. Two of our four helicopters were hit by ground fire including the one I was in. RPG and AK-47’s,” he said. “So we got hit, we sat down, everyone was okay, our captain took a Purple Heart injury to his ear in the cockpit but we were alone.”
Also, in 2013, Williams said in an interview with Alec Baldwin that bullets made their way into he chopper’s airframe, saying: “And I’ve done some ridiculously stupid things under that banner, like being in a helicopter I had no business being in in Iraq with rounds coming into the airframe.”
After receiving significant online pushback for his latest retelling of the story last week, Williams told Stars and Stripes Wednesday: “I would not have chosen to make this mistake. I don’t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another.”
According to Variety, NBC News executives have been wary of Williams’ war story for as long as he has been telling it, advising him over the years to keep the story to himself.
“[Williams] had been counseled in the past by senior NBC News executives to stop telling the story in public,” Variety reported, citing an anonymous source. “The advice … was not heeded.”
“Williams’ version of the plane story has never been allowed in NBC News programs, according to three people familiar with the unit. Indeed, in a March 2003, episode of ‘Dateline,’ Williams described the helicopter trip accurately. ‘On the ground, we learned the Chinook ahead of us was almost blown out of the sky,’ he said while narrating a report,” the report added.
This supposed uneasiness may have something to do with the fact that Williams was accompanied during his flight over Iraq by other NBC News personnel, that is, people who would know the truth of what happened that night during the invasion.
As noted by the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple, that fact that additional NBC News staff accompanied Williams – and that they would know whether he was lying or not – could evolve into a serious headache for the network.
“Where were Williams’s crew members, who surely knew that Williams had either ‘conflated’ his Chinook with another Chinook — his explanation — or was using the passage of time to embellish his own exploits — another explanation. And what of other NBC News employees who worked on the story? Why did they remain silent on these matters? Are they still with NBC News?” he asked.
“By all logic, NBC News would like to rest on Williams’s apology, ride out the media storm and, eventually, move ahead with things. Yet the fact that personnel aside from Williams knew that his statements on these events were erroneous should prompt an internal probe as to how these falsehoods circulated so freely,” he added.
For now, it’s unclear whether NBC News will reprimand or discipline Williams for what appears to be a largely fabricated story.
Reynolds, for his part, accepted Williams’ on-air explanation.
“I appreciate the timely response by Brian Williams to correct the story and set the record straight,” he said on Facebook. “I would not want to speculate on why the mistake was made. I personally accept his apology.”
Krell added in reference to the initial pushback on Williams’ retelling of the story last week: “I can understand why [members of the 159th Aviation Regiment’s Chinook] take issue with it. I don’t think it was anything derogatory towards them. I agree [Williams] needs to apologize and get the record set straight, but I don’t take offense to it personally, no.”
