"Simeone and Kelly said only two helicopters were in their group, from Company B of the 159th Aviation. They said Krell was piloting the first helicopter. Simeone and Kelly were pilots on the second Chinook, and Miller was in their crew."

The paper continued: "All three said Williams was riding with them, not with Krell. They all said neither bird took fire at any time that day."

The pilot I interviewed on Thursday about Brian Williams is no longer standing by his story.

That pilot, Rich Krell, told me he was flying the helicopter Williams was on in Iraq -- an account now contradicted by several other soldiers.

On Friday morning, Krell told me that "the information I gave you was true based on my memories, but at this point I am questioning my memories

Pilot of Brian Williams’ flight: All that hit us was dust

I was the pilot in command of the flight that carried Brian Williams into Iraq in March 2003.
The mission was to deliver bridges to the Objective Rams region in order to support our ground-force advancement. We were briefed that we would be operating forward of the line of troops and that the objective was unsecure.

We were a flight of two, and I was the rear aircraft. Our flight to Objective Rams was uneventful, with the exception of a desert dust storm that caused deteriorating conditions not suitable for flight.
We determined that we would not make it back to Kuwait as planned. When we arrived at Objective Rams, we found a US armor unit on the objective. There was also a CH-47 from the “Big Windy” unit out of Germany.

The CH-47 was already shut down, and the entire crew was no longer at the aircraft. We dropped off the bridges and landed next to the parked CH-47 and the Bradley Fighting Vehicles due to the weather.