NBC News anchor Brian Williams conceded Wednesday that a story he had told repeatedly about being under fire while covering the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was false.
Williams said he was not aboard a helicopter that was hit by enemy fire and forced down more than a decade ago.
Instead, Williams told the military newspaper Stars & Stripes in a story published Wednesday that he “misremembered” the story and was sorry for repeating it.
Williams’ admission came after Stars & Stripes contacted crew members of the Chinook helicopter that the anchorman had said he was in when it was hit by two rockets and small-arms fire. They said that Williams was not aboard the aircraft during the incident. They said Williams arrived on another, undamaged helicopter an hour after the crippled Chinook had landed.
Williams’ claim of surviving an air attack bothered several soldiers familiar with air operations at the time. The soldiers’ complaints prompted Williams to apologize.
“I spent much of the weekend thinking I’d gone crazy,” Williams wrote in an apology to the soldiers posted on the NBC Nightly News Facebook page. “I feel terrible about making this mistake.”
