Olson

BARBARA OLSON, 45, a conservative commentator and attorney with experience as a federal prosecutor and congressional counsel, was aboard American Flight 77 from Dulles International Airport when it crashed into the Pentagon.

She alerted her husband, Solicitor General Ted Olson, that the plane she was on was being hijacked Tuesday morning September 11, 2001.

She twice called her husband as the plane was being hijacked and said all passengers and flight personnel, including the pilots, were herded to the back of the plane by the hijackers. The only weapons she mentioned they were carrying were knives and cardboard box cutters.

Barbara originally had been booked on a Monday flight but delayed her departure because Tuesday was her husband's birthday and she wanted to be with him in the morning.

Barbara Olson was a chief investigator for the House Government Reform Committee in the mid-1990s. She later became a lawyer on the staff of Senate Minority Whip Don Nickles, before branching out on her own as a TV commentator and private lawyer.

She appeared as a legal analyst on MSNBC and a panelist on CNN’s “Larry King Live,” focusing on issues ranging from the Clinton impeachment to the missing-person case involving D.C. intern Chandra Levy.

She was a frequent critic of the Clinton administration and wrote a book about Hillary Rodham Clinton entitled “Hell to Pay: The Unfolding Story of Hillary Rodham Clinton,” published in 1999.