LashL,
This is my response to your Barbara Olson post.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2011806&postcount=195
Your work here was very complete and accurate. As I mentioned before I had problems confirming evidence with Mr. Vialls myself on some critical claims he made. My error was in not specifying which part of the article I was referring to. My intended reference was to the parts about the phone usage and credit card issue and the pilot(s) being at the back of the plane.
Vialls said, "Barbara Olson, a conservative commentator and attorney, alerted her husband, Solicitor General Ted Olson, that the plane she was on was being hijacked Tuesday morning, Ted Olson told CNN. Shortly afterwards Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon” … “
Ted Olson told CNN that his wife said all passengers and flight personnel, including the pilots, were herded to the back of the plane by armed hijackers. The only weapons she mentioned were knives and cardboard cutters. She felt nobody was in charge and asked her husband
to tell the pilot what to do.”
The King interview said:
KING: Didn't she ask about the pilot? Was the pilot in the back with her then?
OLSON: I don't know. But she told me at one point in this conversation:
"What shall I tell the pilot? What can I tell the pilot to do?"
KING: Implying he must have been back there with her.
OLSON:
Either the pilot or possibly the copilot or part of the crew. That was the implication, but I didn't really think to ask that specific question.
This at least indicates that some of the content of the original information prefaced with "Ted Olson told CNN" had a foundation. If you couple these two reports I believe it is strongly indicated that it was said that the pilot(s) were at the back of the plane (see the Boston Globe article below for additional insight). Ted did not ask "that specific question" according to the King interview and was in a very understandable emotional state so I guess it can be left open to doubt. My original point was I do not believe Captain Burlingame would have been back there standing around waiting for advice.
The one part of the article you gave possible credence to was the credit card issue.
Here is a quote from an article on 9-30-01 indicating a charge for set up. AA was a partner in this program if you read the linked article.
"Following a sharp decrease in business after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, GTE Airfone is temporarily discounting its air to ground phone service.
The discount is already in effect, and per-minute calling rates for direct-dial domestic voice calls made from airlines using Airfone are now 99 cents. The one-time initial charge for such calls also has dropped to 99 cents. The standard rate was $3.99 for the connection fee and $3.99 per minute."
http://www.m-travel.com/news/2001/09/airfone_drops_p.html
It would require phone records or credit card records to prove the specifics of Ted Olson's varying accounts. I highly doubt that any of these will be forthcoming.
You stated, "Mr. Olson said that he 'guessed' she didn’t have her purse with her, and that she called collect." In his Hannity and Colmes interview he was more specific when he said, "that she somehow didn’t have access to her credit cards".
Here is some other documentation on the conflicting accounts of the call:
"In one account, Barbara Olson calls from inside a bathroom. [Evening Standard, 9-12-2001]
"In another account, she is near a pilot, and in yet another she is near two pilots. [
Boston Globe, 11/23/2001]"
"Ted Olson’s account of how Barbara Olson made her calls is also conflicting.
Three days after 9/11, he says, 'I found out later that she was having, for some reason, to call collect and was having trouble getting through. You know how it is to get through to a government institution when you’re calling collect.' He says he doesn’t know what kind of phone she used, but he has 'assumed that it must have been on the airplane phone, and that she somehow didn’t have access to her credit cards. Otherwise, she would have used her cell phone and called me.' [Hannity & Colmes, 9/14/2001]"
"Why Barbara Olson would have needed access to her credit cards to call him on her cell phone is not explained. However, in another interview on the same day, he says that she used a cell phone and that she may have been cut off “because the signals from cell phones coming from airplanes don’t work that well.” [
CNN, 9/14/2001]"
"Six months later, he claims she called collect 'using the phone in the passengers’ seats.' [Daily Telegraph, 3/5/2002]"
"However, it is not possible to call on seatback phones, collect or otherwise, without a credit card, which would render making a collect call moot. Many other details are conflicting, and Olson faults his memory and says that he 'tends to mix the two [calls] up because of the emotion of the events.' [
CNN, 9/14/2001]"
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a920olsoncall (CT site from which I have used MSM quotes)
Ted Olson over time made very conflicting statements. AirFones on American Airlines at that time appeared to require credit cards even for a collect call. If you had a credit card in that horrible situation why would you not just go ahead and pay the continuous charges? Why even throw in the issues of calling collect? You don't call collect on cellphones.
Documented irreconcilable statements indicate confusion at the least. If somebody wants to pursue the phone records or credit card statements the burden of proof is now on them.
Russell
