AUBURN - The parents of two Lewiston High School students who died in a plane crash along with another ROTC cadet two years ago are suing the school system and the city where they lived.

Nicholas Babcock, 17, and Teisha Loesburg, 16, died on June 22, 2006, when the single-engine plane they were riding in crashed on the western side of Barker Mountain in Newry.

Shannon J. Fortier, 15, also died in that crash. Her parents filed a lawsuit last month against the school district and the company that employed the plane's pilot.

All three were students at Lewiston High School where they had joined the Air Force Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps summer program. The flight that day was scheduled as part of an orientation flight program offered through the school and the U.S. Air Force, designed to introduce cadets to general aviation through familiarization flights in single-engine aircraft.

The students were passengers aboard a Cessena plane operated by Twin Cities Air Services, LLC. Other cadets who participated in the program had alerted its operators immediately before the crash that the pilot of the plane flew "in an unsafe and reckless manner" during their flight, according to the lawsuit, filed recently in Androscoggin County Superior Court.

Those cadets had reported that the pilot:

• flew the plane barefoot in order to "feel the rudders better;"

• flew the plane at "unreasonably low" altitudes;

• executed a "near-vertical climb" that concluded with an "aerodynamic stall, causing the aircraft to fall backward, and then dove toward the ground, recovering at about 75-100 feet from the treetops and 300 feet from the side of a mountain;" and

• executed a "zero-g maneuver, during which he pushed the throttle to full, cut the fuel mixture to idle and caused the aircraft to dive precipitously for five seconds before restoring the fuel mixture."

The pilot had a "history and reputation of conducting unsafe maneuvers in the course of orientation flights," the suit reads.

Another cadet who flew with the pilot in February 2006, four months before the crash, had complained about his conduct. Yet, the program's staff allowed the cadets, including Babcock and Loesburg, to fly with that pilot, the suit says.

The pilot's "extreme and unsafe conduct," was known to the company that employed the pilot as well as the school district, the suit says.

The parents seek to recover damages from the school district and the city due to the untimely deaths as well as "pre-death pain, fright, terror and physical injuries," suffered by Babcock and Loesburg, the suit says.

Lewiston School Superintendent Leon Levesque could not be reached for comment Monday afternoon.

The suit says the school department is responsible for the wrongful deaths and negligence including the "careless, reckless, negligent and malicious piloting, control, maneuvering and operating" of the plane. It also says the school failed to provide for the plan's safe operation.

The suit says the city of Lewiston is responsible for the school's actions in allowing the unsafe operation of the plane.