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Trade Center survivors killed in plane tragedy
Another loses wife, child


Michael Friscolanti
National Post, with files from news services

Two World Trade Center employees who managed to escape from the crumbling towers on Sept. 11 were among the passengers who died when American Airlines Flight 587 crashed into a New York neighbourhood.

And a man injured while escaping the twin towers collapse lost his wife and three-year-old daughter in the plane tragedy.

Hilda Yolanda Mayor, who worked at a ground-floor doughnut shop in the centre, was able to flee the building before it collapsed on Sept. 11. She was on her way to visit family in the Dominican Republic on Monday when the Airbus A300 crashed.

"She was my treasure," her mother, Virginia Hernandez, said from the family's home near San Pedro de Macoris.

Mrs. Mayor's two children had left for the Dominican Republic two weeks earlier and she was on her way there to meet them.

"We were going to make a meal," Mrs. Hernandez said. "We were going to have all the family together."

Felix Sanchez, a 29-year-old financial consultant who also perished in the crash, had recently left his job at Merrill Lynch, emptying out his desk in the World Trade Center the day before suicide hijackers killed nearly 5,000 of his colleagues.

On Monday, he was flying to Santo Domingo to meet with clients for his new career -- a financial adviser to Dominican baseball players.

"After the World Trade Center, he had a renewed outlook on life," said Sid Wilson, a close friend who was involved with Mr. Sanchez in a group called Dominicans on Wall Street. "And the last time I saw him, he was so high on life. I can't believe this."

Ana Nova, a Dominican schoolteacher in the Bronx, who turned 47 on Monday, said: "My brother-in-law Rafael Hernandez had to have surgery on his leg because of the injuries he suffered while trying to escape the twin towers on Sept. 11.

"And on top of that this happens, he loses his wife, his three-year-old daughter, and his other two kids become orphans. The poor man is panicked. You can't talk to him about anything, and he can't look at a plane."

Also included in the death toll of 265 is Bronx resident Mercedes Valoy, the daughter of Dominican singing legend Cuco Valoy.

Her three children also perished.

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