NBC's Brian Williams admits he wasn't on a helicopter shot down in Iraq

NBC News anchor Brian Williams.
(Image credit: Monica Schipper/Getty Images)

On Wednesday, NBC News anchor Brian Williams said that a story he has repeated for years about being on a helicopter under fire in Iraq actually isn't true.

Williams has said that while covering the invasion in 2003, the Chinook he was on came under enemy fire and was forced down. He last shared this story on Friday during a tribute to a retired solider at a New York Rangers hockey game, but the military newspaper Stars & Stripes reached out to crew members who were on that helicopter, and they said Williams was not on board, and actually arrived on a different aircraft an hour after the damaged helicopter landed.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.