ABC News suspended reporter Matt Gutman over falsely reporting that all four of NBA basketball legend Kobe Bryant’s children were involved in the helicopter crash that killed him, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, and seven others.
Gutman, who serves as ABC News’s national correspondent, suggested during a live breaking television broadcast that Bryant’s daughters Natalia, Bianka, Capri, and Gianna were “believed” to have been in the aircraft when it crashed in Calabasas, California, on Sunday.
“You know, we grew up with Kobe, and the fact that four of his children are believed to be on board that helicopter with him, all daughters, one of them a newborn, is simply devastating,” he reported at the time.
Gutman issued a correction when his report was disputed, and he later apologized for the error on-air.
“Today I inaccurately reported it was believed that four of Kobe Bryant’s children were on board that flight. That is incorrect. I apologize to Kobe’s family, friends and our viewers,” said the correspondent.
In a Wednesday statement to the Los Angeles Times, ABC News revealed it had suspended Gutman for the false report.
“Reporting the facts accurately is the cornerstone of our journalism,” said an ABC News spokesperson. “As he acknowledged on Sunday, Matt Gutman’s initial reporting was not accurate and failed to meet our editorial standards.”
Gutman added to the newspaper:
We are in the business of holding people accountable. And I hold myself accountable for a terrible mistake, which I deeply regret. I want to personally apologize to the Bryant family for this wrenching loss and any additional anguish my report caused.
Officials on Tuesday completed recovering the bodies of all nine victims who died in the helicopter crash that killed Bryant and his daughter, the Los Angeles coroner’s office said.
The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner said response teams recovered three bodies Sunday, the day of the crash. It took until Monday for searchers to locate the other six occupants of the helicopter.
The bodies were transported to the county’s Forensic Science Center.
The pilot of the helicopter made a rapid upward ascent to avoid a layer of clouds in the moments before it crashed into a hillside, the National Transportation Safety Board said.
NTSB official Jennifer Homendy said in an update the helicopter had been flying from Orange County to Ventura County in Southern California — below 1,000 feet under special visual flight rules — when the 29-year-old Sikorsky S-76 chopper slammed into a hillside in Calabasas.
Bryant was an 18-time All-Star who won five NBA championships over his 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers, solidifying him as one of the greatest basketball players of all time.
The UPI contributed to this report.