ABOVE: Kenneth Craig reports on the investigation into a plane crash that killed composer James Horner.
TORONTO — James Horner, who earned Academy Awards for his work on Titanic, died Monday morning in a plane crash near Santa Barbara, California. He was 61.
The acclaimed and prolific composer’s assistant Sylvia Patrycja called the death “a great tragedy” on Facebook.
“We have lost an amazing person with a huge heart and unbelievable talent,” she wrote.
“He died doing what he loved.”
Horner was piloting a single-engine Tucano turbo-prop when it went down in Los Padres National Forest, roughly 96 kilometres north of Santa Barbara, at around 9:30 a.m., according to the Ventura County Sheriff Department. No one else was aboard.
The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the crash.
“My heart aches for his loved ones,” tweeted director Ron Howard, who collaborated with Horner on seven movies.
Horner composed scores for a long list of films, including several Star Trek movies, Apollo 13, Braveheart, A Beautiful Mind, Field of Dreams and The Amazing Spider-Man.
He scored Aliens, Titanic and Avatar for Canadian director James Cameron, and was scheduled to create the music for two upcoming Avatar sequels. He won Oscars for the Titanic score and for co-writing the hit “My Heart Will Go On” for Canadian singer Céline Dion.
“René and I are deeply saddened by the tragic death of James Horner,” Dion said in a statement. “He will always remain a great composer in our hearts. James played an important part in my career. We will miss him.”
Cameron told The Hollywood Reporter: “The beginning and end of his filmography are films that he did, or would have done, with me. It’s a curious bookend. We both started out on the same film in 1980, and his last listed films are the Avatar sequels, which he would have begun later this year.”
In all, Horner earned 10 Oscar nominations during his career. (His father Harry Horner won a pair of Oscars as an art director and set designer.) He also had two Golden Globe Awards and three Grammys.
Horner’s music can be heard in the July release Southpaw starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Canada’s Rachel McAdams.
His credits also include the theme music for the CBS Evening News in 2006. He composed Pas de Deux, a double concerto for violin and cello that premiered at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall last year and Collage: A Concerto for Four Horns and Orchestra, which debuted in London in March.
The avid pilot also scored 2005’s Flightplan and the 2012 short First in Flight. He composed music for this year’s Living in the Age of Airplanes, narrated by Harrison Ford, who crashed his plane in March.
In 2010, Horner wrote a 12-minute piece for aerial acrobatics trio The Flying Horsemen, with whom he once flew. He said he wanted the music to “epitomize the beauty of flight.”
Born in Los Angeles, Horner started playing piano as a young boy and later studied at the Royal College of Music in London. He earned a bachelor’s degree in music from the University of Southern California and taught music theory at UCLA before turning to Hollywood.
Singer Josh Groban, who sang Horner’s “Remember Me” for the movie Troy, tweeted: “We’ll always remember you, James.”
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Horner is survived by wife Sarah and two daughters as well as his brother Christopher Horner, a writer and filmmaker.
Here’s how other celebrities reacted to Horner’s death on social media:
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