The deadly crash at the Reno, Nev., air race has hit too close to home for one Winnipeg family.

One of the nine people killed Friday has been identified as George Hewitt. The Winnipeg born and raised pilot and his wife were in the VIP seating area when a P 51 Mustang aircraft slammed into it like a missile.

“He just retired and was enjoying life to its fullest. He turned 60 last year,” retired from Air Canada and was living outside of Phoenix with his wife, Wendy.

“They had to use fingerprinting to identify his remains,” said Hewitt. “His wife hasn’t been identified yet,” but she was with him Air Jordan 7s in the seating area when it was hit, he said.

“It’s been very hard for the whole family,” he said.

“He was one of the best brothers you could ever have. Both Wendy and George were incredible people. They did whatever they could to help people,” said Hewitt. His parents Rose and George in Winnipeg are reeling from the news they’ve lost a son.

“Mom and Dad are taking it very hard. He was the No. 1 son.”

Dave Desmon, an executive officer with Cascade Warbirds a non profit group whose members own and fly a wide range of ex military aircraft, told KIRO TV he was talking to the Hewitts moments before the plane narrowly missed the packed grandstand and Air Jordan 23s nose dived into a section of VIP box seats.

“It rolled to the right, back over the top of the crowd, then right down towards us,” said Desmon. (800 km/h) and trying to decide which way it was moving so we could move the opposite direction.”

Hewitt, a Westwood Collegiate grad, loved airplanes and flying before he even finished high school, his brother said.

As a kid, George was a member of the Air Cadets 177 Squadron and at the age of 16 got his private pilot’s licence, said Wayne.

George went to Red River College but, before he could finish, Air Canada hired him and he moved to Montreal.

“Air Canada got him on board and he retired at the end of last year.”

He and Wendy, 57, moved to Fort Mojave, Ariz., near Phoenix.

“He’s an air buff,” said Hewitt. George owned a Second World War Navion that he flew with the Cascade EAA Warbirds Squadron 2.

“He loves flying in formation at air shows.”

When Hewitt saw the horrific crash at the Reno air race on the news, he was worried.

“At first I was looking to see if it was his aircraft,” Hewitt said. He was relieved when he saw it wasn’t George’s Navion. “I felt bad but didn’t think twice about it.”

Then, on Saturday, he heard that his brother was there in Reno with his wife.

“I was scouring the news and videos on the Internet,” looking for any images of his brother in the thick of the chaos lending a hand.

“George is one of those people who wouldn’t run away, he’d go and help,” said Wayne.

George, it turned out, was beyond help.

“He was in the VIP bleachers seating area,” said Hewitt, who spoke Jordan Retro 10 with a friend of the couple who was at the air race and saw his brother and his wife.

“He said ‘George and Wendy Air Jordan 4s never saw it coming, KOBE 9 it was so fast.’ “

Hewitt said he’s spoken to several people who were there at the time and those trying to deal with the aftermath.

“The coroner said to me ‘We believe Wendy’s deceased.’ “

Officials haven’t been able to confirm it yet. The couple was in the “impact zone” and the coroner will have to rely on DNA to identify her remains, said Wayne.