3 Students, Pilot Killed One Year Ago

A year after a Cessna 172 crash in western Maine took the lives of three Lewiston High schools ROTC students and the pilot, the NTSB issued its final report that said that the pilot few barefoot and performed unusual flight maneuvers earlier in the day, reported the Associated Press.

The June 22, 2006, crash took the lives of the pilot, William "Charlie" Weir, and his three passengers, Shannon Fortier, 15, Nicholas Babcock, 17, and Teisha Loesburg, 16. The three teens were part of an Air Force Junior ROTC summer camp program.

The report indicated the plane was operating at full throttle when it crashed into the tops of 60-foot trees on Barker Mountain; the plane tumbled to the ground and the wreckage caught fire. It also indicated that there were no mechanical problems with the plane and made no mention of pilot error as a factor of the crash.

As originally reported by ANN, the Cessna 172 crashed about 2:10 pm into a remote part of Barker Mountain.

The NTSB report, which was released this week, includes accounts from cadets who had flown with Weir earlier in the day. Said one cadet, the accident day flight was "different" from the flight he had participated in with the same flight instructor on a previous occasion.

According to the cadet, during a flight with a group of Civil Air Patrol cadets in February of 2006, the flight instructor asked the cadets if they were getting bored. He then performed two "dips" which were "pretty steep," and then did what the cadet described as a "zero g" maneuver.

During the maneuver the flight instructor climbed the airplane to approximately 3,500 feet msl and then descended to "less than" 2,000 feet msl. The cadet also observed, "stuff floating around" and a pen "came off" the top of the airplane's instrument panel.

A witness reported that on the day of the accident two light-colored, high-wing airplanes were flying southeast "awfully low" near Paris, Maine, between 12:30 and 1:00 pm. The witness added that first airplane was going "fairly flat" but the second airplane was "going back and forth," and seemed to be "playing, making sweeps."

The cadets who flew with the flight instructor on the day's first orientation flight the day of the accident stated that the flight instructor flew the airplane barefoot in order to "feel the rudders better."

After departing and turning right, the flight instructor headed over the top of some "ATV trails and logging roads," and then circled the Sunday River Ski Resort. The flight then proceeded around a mountain, where the flight instructor initiated a climb.

The plane then stalled, "fell backwards and to the left," and then dove towards the ground. At approximately 75 to 100 feet above the treetops, and 300 feet from the side of the mountain, the flight instructor recovered and headed back in the direction of the airport.

Towards the end of the flight, the flight instructor once again pulled up, this time into a "zero g maneuver." During the maneuver, he pushed the throttle full in, and then "pulled the mixture" to idle cutoff, and pushed the nose of the airplane down.

After approximately five seconds, he increased the "mixture" and recovered. While returning to land, the pilot missed the turn to line up with the runway, and "pulled a tight turn, and pulled tighter when that did not work."

One cadet who estimated he had been in an airplane at "least ten times" as both a passenger or when flying, estimated that during the flight they were between 1,000 to 1,200 feet. He also estimated that they were flying close to the treetops, which was "kind of scary."

Said flight instructor Maurice Roundy to WCSH TV6, "Of course I wasn't there, I wasn't in the cockpit; we can only guess what happened, but according to the report it seemed like the pilot was doing some things that were not using his best judgment and maybe hot dogging or something."

Nate Humphries, president of Twin Cities Air Service where Weir worked, said the pilot portrayed in that federal report was not the William Weir that he knew. 

According to the Portland Press Herald, the Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program changed its rules for orientation flights on January 1, 2007, prohibiting aerobatic maneuvers and emphasizing safety as the overriding concern.

The report said each year more than 1,000 Air Force junior ROTC cadets participate in the flight orientation program, which is designed to stimulate an interest in general aviation and aerospace activities.

FMI: www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/GenPDF.asp?id=NYC06FA154&rpt=fa, www.afrotc.com, www.lewiston.k12.me.us/~lhsweb