Titanic and Avatar composer James Horner died when his plane crashed just outside of Santa Barbara on Monday morning.
The plane, owned and piloted by the famous composer, crashed at 9:30 a.m. local time about 60 miles north of Santa Barbara, California, killing Horner. He was the only person on board.
Earlier it was unclear who was piloting the plane, but sources including Variety later learned that it was Horner in the cockpit.
The local firefighters found plane debris in a field with no survivors. The crash did cause a brush fire, which reportedly spread to about one-acre around the crash location.
Horner was a well-known composer, winning two Academy Awards, one for his work on Titanic and another for best original song. He’s also well-known for his work on Mel Gibson’s epic film Braveheart, Russell Crowe’s A Beautiful Mind, James Cameron’s other massively popular film Avatar, and ’90s hits like Jumanji, Casper, and Apollo 13. More recently he composed the soundtracks for films including 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man and next month’s Southpaw starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Forest Whitaker, and Rachel McAdams.
Horner was 61 years old. Listen to a sample of his work — Titanic’s “The Dream” — below:
