Miroslav Liska, the pilot who died in Sunday’s glider crash at the Bend Municipal Airport, was a friendly and generous person as well as an experienced flyer, friends remembered Monday.

“He was just a very happy person, very friendly, very generous, and just couldn’t do enough for you,” said Stephanie Hartung, manager of the Sunriver Airport.

Liska, 64, lived in Somis, Calif., which is northwest of Los Angeles, but he and his wife had bought a house in Sunriver last year. And Liska quickly made friends at the local airport, Hartung said, hanging out with other pilots most mornings, drinking coffee and telling plane stories.

‘Airport bums’

“We call them our airport bums,” Hartung said. “He just loved the group, and everyone loved him.”

And Liska was generous as well, she said. He would call from a trip to Costco to see if the crew at the airport had eaten lunch, and see if he could pick up anything for them. Or, he would take staffers up in his plane to teach them new flying skills.

“He just loved to share his experience,” Hartung said. “It’s really sad … We’re all still kind of just reeling today.”

Fellow pilot Chuck Rosenfeld, of Sunriver, said Liska was a regular in a group of pilots that would meet up, have a cup of coffee, and talk about everything from maintenance problems to flying conditions to interesting places to fly.

“Mike was an extremely well-regarded pilot, a very friendly person,” Rosenfeld said.

He had a Cessna on amphibious floats, and would talk about landing on lakes up in Canada.

“He was a very avid sportsman when it came to flying to interesting places,” he said.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of Sunday’s crash, said Mike Huhn with the agency. Investigators are currently working on gathering witness reports, he said, adding that Liska apparently took off from the Bend airport, circled back and struck a building.

The crash occurred at about 10 a.m. Sunday, and Liska was flying a Hoac-Austria Super Dimona motorized glider built in 1993.

“We have no information about what his intentions were, and whether there were any problems with the airplane,” Huhn said.

In trying to piece together what happened, investigators will look at the pilot’s training and experience, the plane and its engine to determine if there were any anomalies and the environment at the airport, he said.

If people have information concerning the incident, Huhn said they should contact him at (202) 314-6000.