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Americans were first told that terrorists had hijacked an airliner when CNN gave a report about US Solicitor General Theodore “Ted” Olson, who said that his wife, well-known TV commentator Barbara Olson, had called him twice from American Airlines (AA) Flight 77, stating that terrorists had taken over this flight. This would have been roughly a half hour before this plane, according to the official story, crashed into the Pentagon.

Ted Olson reported, according to CNN, that his wife had “called him twice on a cell phone from American Airlines Flight 77,” saying that “all passengers and flight personnel, including the pilots, were herded to the back of the plane by armed hijackers,” who had “knives and cardboard cutters.” [1]

Although Olson had originally told CNN that his wife had used a cell phone, the FBI’s September 11th summary of its interview of him said: “[Mr. Olson] doesn’t know if the calls were made from [Barbara Olson’s] cell phone or the telephone on the plane.” [2] But during a September 14 interview on Hannity & Colmes, Olson suggested that his wife had reached him at the Department of Justice by using the “airplane phone.” [3] Ted Olson continued to go back and forth between the two alternatives. [4]

In any case, the first call from his wife, Olson told the FBI, lasted “about one minute.” [5] The second call, he told Larry King, lasted “two or three or four minutes.” [6]

The 9/11 Commission Report stated (in 2004) that the FBI and the Department of Justice believed that there had actually been four calls from Barbara Olson. [7]