She survived the 9/11 attacks but died two months later in a plane crash. 25 years later, her family is telling her story

By Alexandra Skores, CNN (CNN) — Hilda Mayol was working in the World Trade Center when terrorists struck on September 11, 2001. Evacuating, she saw people fleeing beside her hit by the falling debris and covered with dust from the burning skyscrapers. “Keep going,” she told herself. Two babies and a husband were waiting at home. She made the long walk back to her family and safety. Then tragedy struck again. On November 12, 2001, two months and a day after the attacks, Hilda boarded American Airlines Flight 587. It crashed just after takeoff from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, going down about 13 miles from where the World Trade Center had stood. “I don’t like thinking about it,” Yari Mayol, her daughter, told CNN. “But sometimes, it just pops up how her final moments would have been. I know she would have been so scared. I just don’t know what she would have been thinking.” Hilda was one of 265 people, most from the Dominican Republic, who died when the Airbus A3