AUBURN – When she heard a hijacked plane had crashed in Pennsylvania, Terry Greene thought it tragic for those passengers and their families, but lucky the plane didn’t smash into a skyscraper, killing more people.

Then she learned her brother Donald was aboard that plane.

“I can’t describe the feeling. I was in a very dark, black hole,” she said. Greene attended a round-table discussion Wednesday with the relative of another Sept. 11, 2001, victim at the home of state Sen. Neria Douglass. The two women, both from the Boston area, talked about their support for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.

An executive at a company that manufactured aeronautics instruments, Donald Greene also had been a pilot. He was on his way to California to hike with his brothers.

Terry Greene said he likely had been involved in the attempt to thwart the hijacking when the plane crashed. His exact actions were never determined, she said.

She said she also believes that President Bush has capitalized on the tragedy to wage war on Iraq, despite convincing evidence that Saddam Hussein was not a direct threat to the United States or connected to the terrorist attacks that killed her brother. Still, she said she is thankful to military families for their sacrifice.

Terry Rockefeller, whose sister Laura worked as an actress in New York, had been in the Windows on the World restaurant atop the World Trade Center when the planes struck.

Rockefeller hadn’t known that her sister was in the building working a conference until a friend called later that day.

She said she was shocked when, in her opinion, President Bush dragged his feet in calling for an investigation into the terrorist attacks, then was uncooperative with the 9/11 commission and refused to testify under oath.

“That’s unhealthy for a democracy,” she said.

Both women had traveled to New Hampshire and planned a stop in Bangor.