Soldiers, pilot in command dispute account given to CNN, call Brian Williams' flight 'uneventful'

Brett T. | 4:05 PM on February 06, 2015

As Twitchy reported, pilot Rich Krell was interviewed both on and off-air by CNN Thursday, saying that while NBC anchor Brian Williams might have misremembered some details, his helicopter did take small arms fire. New York Post columnist and critic Kyle Smith thought it strange that Krell was the only voice to emerge to straighten the record while other witnesses continued to remain silent. Stranger still: Krell has since said that he is now “questioning his memories,” not to mention deleting his Twitter account.

Well, the other witnesses are silent no more. The New York Post has published a piece by Chris Simeone, the pilot in command of the flight that carried Brian Williams into Iraq in March 2003, who says unequivocally, “Brian Williams’ account is not true.”

A dust storm sent the Chinook looking for somewhere to land, recalls Simeone, and that somewhere was among an armor unit and a CH-47 from the “Big Windy” unit out of Germany.

After landing, we learned that the parked aircraft had received small-arms fire and had been hit with an RPG on their mission.

Brian Williams and crew recorded footage of this parked aircraft. The “Big Windy” aircraft was not part of our unit. It was not part of our flight. We were not flying “behind” them. Our missions were completely separate.

New York Times reporter Ravi Somaiya also says others have emerged to dispute Williams’ account.

https://twitter.com/ravisomaiya/status/563473566092771331

https://twitter.com/ravisomaiya/status/563473607230517248

https://twitter.com/ravisomaiya/status/563473637299458048