Cadets recall fatal Newry plane crash

BANGOR – Tyler Frazer hasn’t cried once in the three weeks that have passed since his best friend’s plane crashed into a mountainside in Newry. He hasn’t cried for Nick Babcock, 17, his buddy of three years; for Shannon Fortier, 15; or for Teisha Loesberg, 16, who also died when the Cessna 172 crashed after taking off from a Bethel airport.

Nick, Shannon and Teisha weren’t the type to cry, and so he won’t either, Tyler said Tuesday.

“Crying for me would be like releasing them from my heart,” he said, raising his hand to his chest. “I want to keep them in my heart.”

Tyler was at the Air National Guard base in Bangor Tuesday evening, participating in the first day of a two-week Civil Air Patrol camp that was dedicated this year to the Lewiston students. Earlier that day, base chaplain Lt. Col. Richard Dickinson spoke about coping with grief to the cadets, some of whom knew the victims.

The cause of the June 22 crash, which also killed pilot and flight instructor William “Charlie” Weir, 24, of Auburn, remains unclear.

Tyler just finished his junior year at Lewiston High School, and was a classmate and member of the Air Force JROTC program that sponsored the ill-fated flight along with Nick, Shannon and Teisha. He was at the Bethel airport when the plane took off, and when it failed to return.

Shannon wanted to be a pilot, and was eager that day to get up in the air, Tyler said.

“She wanted to drive so bad,” he said, smiling. “I remember the last thing I said to her was, ‘Are you happy now?'”

Dressed in a camouflage battle dress uniform, the tall teenager with closely cropped blonde hair spoke easily about the crash and the friends whose lives it claimed. Nick wanted to be a Marine biologist, and Teisha a police officer, he said. They used to call Shannon “Paris” because of the beret she always used to wear, he said.

Tyler plans to become a Navy pilot and fly F-14 Tomcat fighter jets, the kind flown in the “Top Gun” movie, he said.

But crying won’t bring his friends back, a fact Tyler reminds himself of through a saying: “Do not shed thine tears, for thine tears shall not bring restoration,” he said.

The base chaplain offered a divergent message Tuesday, encouraging the 58 cadets and staff to express their emotions, whether about the crash victims or their own loved ones who have died.

“Please don’t ever make someone who needs to cry feel guilty or small or immature for crying,” he said, the sniffles of a few cadets breaking the stillness of the stuffy auditorium.

“Being able to cry is just as important as being able to shout with joy,” he said.

The Civil Air Patrol camp teaches the cadets about aviation and other skills, but it also encourages them to develop into healthy adults, which includes avoiding becoming hardened by difficult emotions, Dickinson said.

“We don’t want you to be unfeeling, uncaring, insensitive people,” he said. “Don’t become like that.”

Tyler has heard similar messages many times over the last few weeks, but he’s consoled knowing that Nick, Shannon and Teisha were having fun, he said.

“They were doing what they love. They were flying,” Tyler said.