By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Although officials have not yet confirmed the identities of three teenagers killed in a Thursday afternoon plane crash, friends and family say two of the victims were 17-year-old Nick Babcock and 15-year-old Shannon Fortier.

Friends have been told that 16-year-old Teisha Loesberg also died in the crash.

All three were members of Lewiston High School’s Air Force Junior ROTC program. They were on an ROTC summer camp field trip when the four-seater airplane they were flying in went down on the western side of Barker Mountain in Newry.

The 24-year-old pilot was also killed. The cause is still under investigation.

On Friday, nearly 100 students, parents and Lewiston High School staff members gathered at the high school for an impromptu memorial service. As the skies filled with storm clouds, the school lowered its flag to half-staff. More than a dozen ROTC students, in camouflage pants and white T-shirts, stood at attention.

Some grief-stricken teens left almost immediately. A few staff and students stayed for two hours, talking.

Mourners laid colorful roses and carnations, ROTC hats and a box of candy at the base of the flagpole in a makeshift memorial. Someone left a package of chopsticks, perhaps in honor of Fortier, an outgoing girl who collected swords and who loved Japanese animation. She planned to take Japanese language lessons next year.

Fortier was on the airplane Thursday because she also loved flying, thrilled by a similar flight during camp last year. When she couldn’t soar for real, Fortier often dashed to the next best thing: the ROTC’s computerized flight simulator.

Fortier was a member of the high school’s swim team and was an altar server at Holy Family church. Something of a tomboy, she loved riding dirtbikes with her father and her friends.

She had just finished her freshman year at Lewiston High School, but already felt the military calling.

She wanted to be an Air Force pilot when she grew up.

“She had big dreams,” said her father, John Fortier, hours before the memorial service.

Babcock also fell in love with flying during ROTC camp. Last year, he was allowed to work some of the plane’s controls during takeoff and landing, his father said.

Fun-loving and headstrong, he didn’t consult his parents before joining the ROTC program as a freshman three years ago. He just jumped in.

“He was a bright kid who couldn’t sit still long enough in the classroom. Which is probably why ROTC hit him. They didn’t try to sit on him,” said his father, Philip Babcock.

He had just finished his junior year at Lewiston High. Intrigued by science, he planned to become a marine biologist.

Loesberg’s family could not be reached for comment Friday. People who knew her said she was an assured, determined girl who excelled at math and who was already taking college courses.

She had just finished her junior year and had talked about a career in law enforcement.

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