Aerith's dead helped to save the planet, but there is no way she could know that, at the time.
If that was her plan, she would have mentioned it in "The Maiden who Travels the Planet", but she didn't. And she wouldn't have said "Then, I'll be going now. I'll come back when it's all over." to Cloud in his dream.
She was there to summon Holy. The spell would destroy Meteor, and screw with Sephiroth's plans. Why she would want to die? To help destroy something that would have already been destroyed by Holy?
Aerith wanting to die, don't make any sense within the story, it's not backed up by any official source, and it's contradicted by Aerith herself(in Cloud's dream).
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