NEWRY – The pilot of a plane that crashed one year ago today, killing himself and three Lewiston High School students, flew erratically in previous training flights carrying LHS Air Force ROTC cadets, a federal report released Thursday indicates.

The four-page National Transportation Safety Board report concludes that no component of the aircraft body or engine had malfunctioned before the Cessna 172N crashed into Barker Mountain, killing everyone aboard.

The fuel system had been working properly. Both wings were found where they were supposed to be. Everything seemed fine with the plane, according to the report, until it crashed shortly after 2 p.m. June 22, 2006.

A full page of the NTSB analysis focuses on the behavior of William “Charlie” Weir, the 24-year-old pilot, in the hours, days and months before the crash.

Although Weir has been praised by the people he worked for, NTSB investigators pointed to incidents, including one earlier on June 22, 2006 also involving LHS cadets, in which he apparently took chances.

Killed in the crash along with Weir were Lewiston High School students Nicholas Babcock, 17, Teisha Loesberg, 16, and Shannon Fortier, 15. Each of the teens was being provided flight instruction as part of a summer camp program run by the school’s Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps.

Weir was working for Twin Cities Air Service in Auburn and providing lessons to the Civil Air Patrol cadets when he crashed. Prior to the wreck, the Cessna had taken off from Bethel Regional Airport and appeared to be returning about 2:10 p.m. when something went wrong.

According to the report, another teenager who had flown with Weir earlier in the day and on previous occasions told investigators the pilot had a history of showing off behind the controls of an airplane.

“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,” the report states. “He then performed two ‘dips’ which were ‘pretty steep,’ and then did what the cadet described as a ‘zero g’ maneuver.”

During that maneuver, Weir climbed to approximately 3,500 feet and then rapidly dropped to 2,000 feet, according to the report.

A different witness told the FAA that on the day of the crash, he spotted two planes flying “awfully low” near Paris roughly an hour before the crash. One of the planes was flying flat while the second was sweeping from one side to the other, according to the report.

The day of the crash, the Cessna 172 and a Cessna 152 were both being used for cadet orientation flights. That plane seen flying erratically was not positively identified as the one that later crashed.

But other cadets who had flown with Weir earlier on the day of the crash told the FAA that the pilot flew his plane barefoot as he buzzed them over trails and logging roads before circling the Sunday River Ski Resort where he encountered difficulties.

“The flight then proceeded around a mountain, and the flight instructor initiated a climb. The plane then stalled, ‘fell backwards and to the left,’ and then dove towards the ground,” the report states. “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.”

Interviews with surviving cadets also revealed to investigators that Weir had encountered flight problems earlier in the day, in a flight preceding the one that resulted in the wreck on Barker Mountain.

“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,” according to the report. “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.'”

According to the report, the 1979 Cessna 172N had its wing flaps down 10 degrees and its throttle full open at the time of the crash. The Cessna’s engine was still running and the propeller spinning when it crashed through trees into the mountainside at 2,070 feet elevation. The report also stated that the plane’s cabin was gutted by fire, and, that the crash was so sudden that no one unlocked the cabin doors.

At no point in the report is pilot error blamed directly.

Before he was killed, Weir was months away from a college aeronautics degree, according to those who worked with him. He had moved here from Texas in November to take what was only his second commercial pilot job at Twin Cities Air Service. He would have graduated from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in August.

As a pilot, Weir worked for Nate Humphrey, president of Twin Cities Air Service, of Auburn. Since the crash, Humphrey has stood behind his pilot, saying Weir never gave him cause for concern.

On Wednesday night, Humphrey had not been informed that the NTSB report had been released. When he read it, he found no concrete evidence that pilot error was responsible for last year’s crash, calling some parts of the report “highly speculative.”

The FAA, generally responsible for implementing and enforcing aviation regulations, is frequently called upon by the NTSB to assist with crash investigations.

Humphrey said he was not surprised to learn that no defects were found with his plane. But he did not want to comment further on details about the crash until he had more time to examine the report.

“It’s really going to take a while for this to sink in,” he said.

Traditionally, Junior ROTC 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. But since the loss of three cadets last year, flights have been halted.

Since the crash, new rules have been issued by the Air Force Junior ROTC headquarters in Maxwell, Ala. Most of them deal with a ban on aerobatic maneuvers by the pilots. 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, Lt. Col. Robert Meyer, who directs the Lewiston program, said during an interview in May.

By Thursday night, however, it remained unknown when those flights will resume. Meyer and his cadets began weeklong training in Gilead on Monday and could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.

Humphrey noted the irony that the NTSB report was made public a day before the first anniversary of the deadly crash.

“I hope the families can find some peace and some healing in their hearts,” he said, “as hard as that may be on the anniversary of this tragedy.”