LEWISTON – Sixteen heels clicked in unison. Eight hands sliced the air in salute. Then, the two solid lines of uniformed high-schoolers, all cadets of the Air Force Junior ROTC, fumbled and broke.

They lined up silently and started over. Tragedy has sobered these teens.

“We’ve come together as a team since the incident,” said Corey Boucher, a Lewiston High School junior. “We’ve had to hold each other up. It’s been hard on all of us.”

On June 22, 2006, they lost three of their own.

Cadets Teisha Loesberg, 16; Shannon Fortier, 15; and Nicholas Babcock, 17, were taking an orientation flight aboard a small Cessna when it crashed into Barker Mountain near Sunday River in Newry. The three teens and their pilot, William “Charlie” Weir, 24, died.

The National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary report, released in January, found no mechanical cause for the crash. A full report is expected to be released any day.

Until the report is released, the cadets remain on the ground, barred from taking orientation flights.

The flights have been a routine part of cadet training for years, aimed at giving students the experience of flight.

“Many of these kids have never been in a plane before,” said Lt. Col. Robert Meyer, who directs the Lewiston program.

Traditionally, flights would take place this June, when the students gather for a week of exercises at the Bog Brook National Guard Training Area in Gilead. They are scheduled to attend the camp on June 18.

But it’s too soon to send kids back up in a small plane, Meyer said.

“Let’s make sure we’re doing what we should be doing,” said the Air Force officer. Part of that will be decided when the National Transportation Safety Board’s full report is released, he said.

When it is, Meyer plans to meet with Lewiston High School Principal Gus LeBlanc and Superintendent Leon Levesque to discuss the findings. Together, they will decide the next move.

Since the crash, new rules have been issued by the Air Force Junior ROTC headquarters in Maxwell, Ala.

One change is the prohibition during the first orientation flight of a stall, a situation in which a plane climbs too steeply.

When the group returns to flying, it will likely be done with Civil Air Patrol pilots rather than civilian pilots, Meyer said.

However, that return will be years away, he predicted.

“We still aren’t flying,” he said. “This is the only Junior ROTC accident that has ever happened.” Statistically, the cadets are more likely to be hurt on the way to the airport than during a flight.

The wounds are still fresh, though.

When school began in the fall, there wasn’t much talk of the tragedy.

“It was the elephant in the room,” Meyer said. Then, the teens became focused on their work.

Junior Samantha Wentworth of Lewiston said many of the students took their work more seriously when they returned.

Jacob Childs, a junior from Edward Little High School in Auburn, cited the unit motto, “Meet the Challenge.”

“The challenge this year is carrying on as we did before,” Childs said. “And I guess that’s what they would have wanted.”

As of April 30, the group had completed 500 hours of community service and 3,000 hours of off-campus activities, including field trips.

“The difficult moments come when there is some kind of interaction with the families,” Meyer said.

It brings back memories.

“Most of us don’t like to discuss it,” said Matthew Reed, a junior from Lewiston. “Some of us are still tying to get over it.”

When he grieves, he tries to recall the time before the crash, before he lost three friends.

“I just try to remember all the good times we had, never the bad times,” he said.

The other way they deal with grief is by getting closer, whether that’s in the classroom or during an exercise.

“When you see one cadet fall down on the course, we are always there to make sure they come back up,” Reed said.