Heartbroken family of woman who survived 9/11 attacks but died in plane crash two months later speak for first time

Detailed summary

A woman who survived a terrorist attack in which a plane annihilated a set of skyscrapers in New York died in another plane crash months later.

Published: 20:17 GMT, 14 November 2026 | Updated: 20:21 GMT, 14 November 2026

The grieving family of a woman who survived the Twin Towers on September 11 only to die in a plane crash two months later is speaking out for the first time in 25 years.

Hilda Yolanda Mayol was 26 years old when she died on November 12, 2001.

Mayol was a Dominican immigrant who worked at the Au Bon Pain restaurant on the ground floor of the World Trade Center's North Tower.

She witnessed the South Tower collapse as she fled the North Tower in a panic, as dust and debris consumed the air.

Mayol boarded the doomed flight to her birth country exactly two months and one day after surviving the terrorist attack.

The National Transportation Safety Board ruled that Flight 587 crashed because of 'unnecessary and excessive rudder pedal inputs,' rather than the public's immediate assumption of another terrorist attack.

Mayol's daughter, Yari Mayol, was 10 months old when her mom died, she recounted to CNN.

Hilda Yolanda Mayol was 26 years old when she died on November 12, 2001, only two months after surviving the September 11 terrorist attacks

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