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Aspen native Bryan Sax, a devoted family man, pilot, businessman and one of the town’s most well-known bartenders, died in a midair collision over the Florida Everglades on Saturday afternoon.

The Broward County Sheriff’s Office is expected to confirm Sax as one of four victims in the accident today. Word of the tragedy spread quickly through Aspen on Sunday, leading to a somber gathering of friends at Jimmy’s bar, where Sax worked for eight years, and a Facebook group in his memory with more than 90 members by late Sunday night.

“He had a really infectious personality; it was impossible not to like the guy and anyone who knew him will tell you he was an amazing human being,” said close friend JP Hutter.

Sax, an avid pilot who recently became a co-owner of Aspen Aero mountain flight school, was training in Florida to become an instructor in flying multi-engine aircraft.

He was piloting a twin-engine Piper with another person on board and had taken off from the Fort Lauderdale airport sometime after 3 p.m. Both the Piper and another small plane, a Cessna 172 that had taken off from North Perry airport, were en route to a flight training area.

The airspace in that area is very busy, said FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen, because the year-round good weather makes it an ideal place to do flight training.

“The whole east coast of Florida is extremely congested, and there’s lots of airports,” said Bergen, adding that the last midair collision in the general vicinity was about one year ago.

Both planes were flying under visual flight rules, which means they weren’t receiving air traffic control services. The FAA believes the collision happened after 4 p.m., said Bergen, but the agency did not know about the accident until late that night or early the next morning when family members and the planes’ owners reported the aircraft missing.

A search began at daybreak on Sunday and the Coast Guard found the wreckage of both planes in a marshy area of the Everglades, about 8-10 miles west of Fort Lauderdale.

“I’ve never met a finer and safer pilot,” said Jimmy Yeager, owner of Jimmy’s.

Hutter, a close friend of the family who grew up in Aspen with Sax, said that his friend had just passed a step in his training process to fly a multi-engine airplane. He was excited about this when he called Hutter to wish him a happy 40th birthday, the morning of the fateful flight.

“As always, he was excited and happy,” said Hutter, also a pilot, who extolled Sax’s passion for flying but callted it a “distant second” to his three children and his wife, Christy.

Sax’s father is also a pilot, and according to Hutter, his father may have caught the bug from his son, who was “very conscientious” and took care to instill safe habits when flying with his father.

Sax excelled at ski racing in his youth and went on to become the collegiate national champion in giant slalom, according to media reports. He competed in the now-defunct 24 Hours of Aspen and is said to have been extremely proud of his daughter Hannah, 13, a rising star in ski racing.

A former ski race coach, he also coached junior league hockey and was enthusiastic about teaching flying as well.

Described as outgoing and funloving, Sax bartended at Jimmy’s from 1998-2006, where he was known for his big smile and gregarious and welcoming personality. He also gained some fame for a series of advertisements depicting him pouring a drink with different crazy hair-dos.

“He was the greatest, just super boisterous and energetic, he was a bigger than life guy,” said Dylan Regan, a close friend and neighbor who bartended with Sax at Jimmy’s and even had a baby shower for both their kids together. “He would grab me in bear hug and I could barely breathe. “He was well loved by everybody, just a fun-loving guy.”

Sax left Jimmy’s to open Saxy’s coffeeshops, on Midland Ave. in Basalt and in downtown Boulder. He also did some real estate work, but his true professional passion was flying. He would often fly down to Boulder to look in on the coffeeshop there.

“He had this amazing capacity to love life on almost every level,” said Hutter, who knew Sax most of his life but only became close friends through flying in the last several years.

“He’s somewhat of an icon in this community; everyone loved him who knew him. It’s going to be a real jolt, a difficult thing for this community.”

“It just kind of makes you realize you have to cherish life,” said Billy Zuehlke, another friend and bartender who was among those gathered at Jimmy’s on Sunday night. Zuehlke said he would see Sax on a nearly daily basis, bartending and around town.

“Here was a guy who was always so on it and with it, and such a family man but also such a fun guy,” he said. “He was happy man.”

Sax, who was in his late thirties, is survived by his wife Christy, daughter Zaya, 7, stepson Dante Lizotte, 13, daughter Hannah, 13, and parents Don Sax and Marcia Sax.

The National Transportation Safety Board is continuing its investigation into the cause of the crash today. Officials will have to pull the wreckage of both planes out of the marshy area to do so. It typically takes several days for a preliminary report; a final finding of cause could take several months.
lutz@aspendailynews.com