In a statement yesterday to his colleagues. It has become painfully apparent to me im too much a part of the news due to my actions. As editor of daily news ive decided to take my self off my daily broadcast. He went on to say i will continue my career long effort to be worthy of the trust of those who place their trust in us. He says he will be back. To be honest others are not so sure even some people at nbc this morning. Here are the latest developments. Lester holt weekend nightly news anchor will be filling in for Brian Williams starting tomorrow. Its unclear for how long. Meanwhile nbcs Investigative Unit is checking all the facts trying to figure out what really happened in iraq and new orleans. Well get to that a little later in the program. Brian williams was scheduled to be on the late show with David Letterman thursday. Cbs tells me thats going forward. Im told by a source close to Brian Williams its actually undecided whether he will appear. Our experts have a lot to say whether williams and i hate saying these words whether williams can survive this. We have the first tv interviews of two pilots there that day with williams. One who flew with the anchor and one who actually came under attack. Before we get to them lets see how this story evolved from a truth to a lie. The first report was broadcast just a week or so after the beginning of the iraq war in a segment for nbcs dateline Brian Williams recount add harrowing incident under fire. The date march 26th 2003. Our colleague Brian Williams is back in kuwait city tonight after a close call in the skies over iraq. In his report williams says he was traveling with a group of four Army Helicopters in kuwait large ones chinooks. They can carry troops and in this case equipment to build bridges in iraq so units can cross the river. On the ground a chinook ahead of us was almost blown out of the sky. It was a rocket prepared grenade or rpg. After the attack all four helicopters landed and a sandstorm grounded them for two days and three nights. Army sent soldiers to guard the helicopters as well as the team. In that initial report he makes mo mention of the rpg attack or helicopter takes fire. He does say soldiers told him they saw four waex with what looks like rpg. What we didnt know we were north of the invasion. We were the northernmost in iraq. Our good friend Brian Williams. Ten years to the day, march 26th 2013. Brian williams told that tore to David Letterman, except this time saying he was on one of two Army Choppers that were hit both by rpgs and small arms fire. Two of our four helicopters were hit by ground fire including the one i was in. No kidding. Rpg and ak47. The question is what exactly happened in those 10 years to make williams change his story . As with all war stories its complicated. Williams version slowly evolved. A few months after the helicopter incident nbc news published this book, operation iraqui freedom. In it the account is vague, no mention of which helicopter was attacked or where exactly it took place. The story didnt resurface until a few years later when williams returned to iraq. In a blog post in 2007 williams celebrated the life of wayne downey a retired general, nbc analyst in the helicopter. Williams referenced the iraq incident again. Some men on the ground fired rpg through the tail rotor in front of us williams wrote. Small arms fire a chopper pilot took a bullet through the earlobe. All four dropped their loads and landed quickly and hard. Williams obituary for downing began with the incident. It left the impression williams and the general were forced down by enemy fire. When the Chinook Helicopters we were trampling in at the start of the iraq war were fired on and forced down for three days in a stretch of hostile desert. In 2008 in a different blog post williams add add new detail. This time all four took fire. All four took fire. We were forced down and stayed down. Then in 2013 to mark the 10th anniversary of the start of the iraq war, williams went on the letterman show. He also talked with Actor Alec Baldwin about it for a radio podcast. Instead of just writing about it he was telling the story of bullets fired into his helicopter. Ive done some ridiculously stupid things like being in a helicopter i have no business being in in iraq with bullets coming into the airframe. Did you think you would die . Briefly. Sure. And then this just about 10 days ago when williams was at a new york rangers hockey game and and with Army Sergeant major in iraq and with the Helicopter Unit at the time. The soldier had helped protect williams and his team. Now a big change in the story. This is how he told it on nbc nightly news. 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. The previous version evolved to all four choppers being fired on. This latest one added the rpg. Some soldiers who also were there began speaking out saying on facebook they had no memory of williams being on the one chopper that did take a rocketpropelled grenade. Were all the helicopters told to land because they had been fired upon or was it because of that sandstorm . Truth is a tricky thing in war. Now lets hear exactly what happened on the helicopter that actually took rpg and small arms fire. Don heles was one of the pilots. He said he noticed Brian Williams inaccurately telling the story more than a decade ago and wrote to nbc about it. He also says he never heard anything back. Hes sharing his story for the first time on television this morning. Thank you for calling in from enterprise, alabama this morning. Good morning, brian. Tell me do you know where Brian Williams was at the moment your helicopter was hit by the rpg . Well we had a lot going on but i am pretty sure he was not in our flight at all. Meaning he must have been so far away he couldnt see the incident happen . Yes. I mean because we had two units, each had a different mission. They are separated by time. Their destination may be different from what our destination is. It can put time between the two arthritis as they are heading up north. When is the first time you ever heard Brian Williams describe what happened inaccurately . When i had returned back to kuwait for repairs on the aircraft a friend of mine had alerted me of the story and basically asked me if we had Brian Williams on our flight which i told him not we did not. And then he showed me a video of it on the internet because at the time that was the first time i had seen internet in a while. So you were in kuwait this was, what april 2003 . It was very early in the iraq war . Yes. Like we said after the sandstorm we had just gotten back. Our aircraft had to go into maintenance for about two or three weeks. This is crucial, mr. Helus, because according to the time line weve been looking at forth past search days it wasnt until about 2007 that Brian Williams began to embellish the story about being nearby or on the chopper that was struck by rpg. Youre saying you heard it on television in 2003 . Im saying i heard it on the internet that was an interview. An internet video of the Television Segment . Yeah. Yes. So to be clear, theres a tom brokaw interview of Brian Williams a couple days after the incident where he does seem to accurately say it happened to a different chopper other than his own. We dont know if theres others in the archives from 2003 where Brian Williams goes further. Unfortunately records of those times are incomplete. There wrnt transcripts of every segment on nbc or msnbc so we havent been able to find the video you saw. You wrote to nbc, and what did you say when you wrote in . I wrote to msnbc at the time because that was the website i went to. Im sorry. I was just going to tell our viewers at home at the time msnbc. Com was the website for nbc news so thats why you went to msnbc. Com. Correct. And you wrote to nbc to do what . To get them to correct it . Just to alert them that the facts were incorrect, because, you know, stating mr. Williams was not part of our flight. He was in a different flight. In 2007 at fairfield university, connecticut, Brian Williams said a different version of the story. I want to play that sound bite for you and get your reaction. A few years before that you go back to iraq and i look down the tube of an rpg that had been fired at us and it hit the chopper in front of ours. Is it possible he was able to look down the tube of a rocketpropelled grenade launcher . I guess if hes that close, then hes got bigger problems. The only thing you see coming off of an rpg was the smoke trail and explosion. Like i said if youre that close, you have bad luck. Im trying to keep an open mind about Brian Williams. I have been inspired by Brian Williams for years. Ive admired him for years. I wonder if you admire him . I wonder how you feel about him given you tried to contact nbc about this so long ago . I try to keep an unbiased opinion on him. Granted we have embellishers in the military we have them in the civilian world that try to i guess, tell a story of their war medals and, you know, their time in combat. We have the same thing in i assume you as journalists have the same in yours. The fact is that mr. Williams wasnt in or near our aircraft at the time. It saddens me that you have so many other combat journalists out there that are in that type of situation. You know seeing those things happen. More than likely they probably dont tell the story like that, you know with embellishment. Mr. Helus, thank you for being with us this morning. Thank you. Brian williams says what happened was an innocent series of mistakes. So where was he that day . Well he was on board another chopper in iraq. He was taking a risk by being embedded with the troops. He was not on the chopper that was hit. Thats according to the soldiers on board that chopper as you heard from mr. Helus. Now for his first tv interview a pilot of williams is speaking out. He joined me earlier from minneapolis. Chief allan kelly, thanks for joining me. Thank you for having me. Is it right to say Brian Williams was aboard your helicopter and not aboard the Helicopter Shot at in iraq that day . Thats correct. He was aboard my aircraft that day in march. What was your aircraft doing . Was it ever within sight of the chinook that was shot at . My aircraft with chalk one, flight of two chinooks carrying bridge pieces to the euphrates. We were afraid they were google to blow the bridges and we wanted to make sure third id had the capability of crossing the euphrates. As far as chinook that was shot down we were not within visual range of them. They would have to be almost on top of us with the sandstorm we were flying through to get up there. What sort of distance was there between your helicopter with Brian Williams aboard and the helicopter that did take fire . That would be difficult to ascertain. We both took off in separate cereals. The big windy crew my understanding two aircraft and they hooked up with their loads ahead of us. Initially we were probably a half hour behind them. But with the sandstorms the weather we ran into we had to slow up. Im sure they did as well. So its anybodys guess the exact distance but id say probably somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes. Do you think its possible that williams and his crew thought they were being shot at . Is there anything that happened on your flight that made it seem like there was an attack . Thing is possible. They are sitting in the back. I dont remember if they were hooked up on headsets and could hear what was going on. We had a lot of stuff going on in the radios. We had aircraft calling for help being shot down big windy being one of them. So mr. Williams in the back hes free to look out the windows back there. He wouldnt see much. If he was on headsets and heard radio calls over guard, its possible he could have thought that i suppose. I do want to give him and his crew the benefit of the doubt here but since youve heard the apology he gave on air. How do you feel about the kpanlg reagans . Are you personally offended by it . I dont make any judgments on that. Everybody has to live with the life they choose to lead. I was there to do a job, part of a volunteer army. I did my job. Part of that mission was to carry mr. Williams and his crew with him up to be objective rams. If he made mistakes i mean were all human. But i make no judgments on him in that regard. Chief kelly, thanks for sharing what you remember that day. I appreciate it. Its my pleasure. Thank you for having me. Nbc has not responded to my request for comment about these soldiers accounts but nbc investigators have been in touch with helus and kelly as part of an effort to fact check what happened. Now, next this question. Is another storm heading toward mr. Williams . With the media scrutinizing every detail in his reporting from iraq some journalists are asking did he also exaggerate his stories from hurricane katrina. The general joins me on this next. [ susan ] my promotion allowed me to start investing for my retirement. Transamerica made it easy. [ female announcer ] everyone has a moment when tomorrow becomes real. Transamerica. Transform tomorrow. 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[ whistling ] with millions of reviews tripadvisor makes any destination better. 4 4. On wednesday Brian Williams apologized for misremembering what happened to him in iraq. By thursday the internet was abuzz with allegations of another embellishment from the nbc anchor. This time it was about hurricane katrina. Right now there is no clear proof williams exaggerated or lied about his experiences there but nbc is reviewing his accounts. Williams once said that he watched a man commit suicide at the superdome, and he also said this reporter when you look out of your hotel room window in the French Quarter and watch a man float by face down when you see bodies that you last saw in banda aceh, indonesia and swore to yourself you would never see in your country i accidentally ingested floodwater, i had disintary. The hotel overrun with gangs. Hurricane katrina was a horror story. Is it possible he saw a body floating there. General who led task force for katrina, thank you for joining me. Good morning. Good morning. The account he describes Ritz Carlton Hotel on the edge of the French Quarter. Is it possible there was enough water in that part of new orleans that a body could float by. Very suspect but anything is possible brian. There are many stories from katrina, and everybody have their story from where they stood. More than likely that happened on tuesday from looking at date times when he filed that report. For a brief moment there might have been some water that could have possibly got than high by ritz carlton, by and large it was knee level around ritz car carlton. Did you yourself come across bodies. There was a body when i arrived on wednesday morning of katrina week there was a body on wednesday, just as you come off the ramp at the superdome. I stayed there at the superdome for about five days about 18 hours a day. But thats the only body i saw in that particular area of new orleans. We had that body immediately removed. I dont want to dance around this. Do you think he has overstated his role in his experience in new orleans . I think the thing that gives the story suspect, he violated one of the rules of old soldiers war stories. That is you tell war stories about the adventures of others that you observe. Many of his war stories are about him. He became a part of the story. That being said the majority of my time in new orleans, when we were not actually giving orders supervising orders was going around telling the American People that breaking news that they had heard, that had been reported on National Television was not true such as someone blew the levee, we had snipers operating. There was rape and murder happening in the superdome and convention center. So breaking news sometimes broke without being corroborated by other sources. There was a lot of misinformation. Still to this day folks still dont understand what happened with the levee. There was real problems at the levees and this was in some way man made disasters. Theres still misunderstanding. We should give Brian Williams credit, he was there, he was in new orleans. Absolutely. Ill tell you what he beat me he was in new orleans before i got there. I would like him to just verify. If he was a newsman and saw a body floating by his hotel, why didnt he go grab it . Why didnt he get somebody and report it. Grab a camera. Right, grab a ca