EAST HARTFORD -- There's at least one person who wasn't surprised at all to hear that a plane crash in East Hartford Tuesday afternoon was intentional. Suheilly Hernandez of East Hartford was just feet away from the plane when it hit the ground and burst into flames.
"I can see the movement of the plane, how it came down," said Hernandez. "When I saw that, I was like, 'Ok, this is not an accident.'"
Hernandez was driving her minivan along Main Street with her three daughters in the car when she saw the plane heading toward them. She slowed the van down and put it in reverse.
She said, "I'm never going to forget the second that I looked back to my kids, and I come back and I was like, 'Run.'"
15-year-old Keishla and 17-year-old Kimberlee Rivera grabbed their 5-year-old sister from the back seat as Hernandez put the car in park.
"My little sister had her seat belt on, so trying to pull her out was like a struggle. But we ended up just yanking her out as fast as we could," explained Keishla Rivera, one of Hernandez's daughters who witnessed the crash.
The whole family thought they weren't going to make it out of there alive as they saw the flames starting to build.
"[I thought] 'I'm dead. This is the last moment I see my daughters. I'm dead,'" said Hernandez.
The experience was so traumatizing, Hernandez was taken from the scene to the hospital by ambulance. She said she was having a panic attack and doctors told her her blood pressure was dangerously high.
"I can't breathe. My mind was like in shock," she said.
When FOX 61 spoke with her Wednesday, Hernandez said it's still hard to think about what happened, and even harder to wonder "What if?"
The family is considering this their second chance at life and they say they're not taking it for granted.
Hernandez said, "It's not your time. I'm here for something. I'm here for something and my daughters too."
