NBC’s Brian Williams has apologized after recanting a story he told last week at a New York Rangers game honoring a veteran, which claimed he was shot down on a helicopter in Iraq in 2003.
He admitted on NBC Nightly News on Wednesday night it was a “bungled attempt” to honor this veteran and “brave military men and women, veterans everywhere.”
Williams had recalled being in a helicopter that was shot down by RPG fire, but recanted by saying he was in a helicopter following the one that was shot down.
“After a groundfire incident in the desert during the Iraq war invasion, I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago,” he told his viewers, Washington Post reports. “It did not take long to hear from some brave men and women in the air crews who were also in that desert. I want to apologize.”
He added in his original story he “said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by [rocket-propelled grenade] fire. I was instead in a following aircraft.”
Williams also told Stars and Stripes, who reports Williams and his NBC News team were actually an hour behind the helicopter that got shot down in Iraq, he had “not have chosen to make this mistake,” adding, “I don’t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another.”
Williams has been repeating this story for years, which has angered the crew on the helicopter that was shot down. When he repeated it last week at the Rangers game, it gave the story a new life and forced them to speak out.
image via B. Ach/INFevents.com