James Horner, the Oscar-winning composer of Titanic, has died in a plane crash in southern California. He was 61. According to reports, a single-engine plane registered to Horner, crashed near Santa Barbara on Monday morning. The identity of the pilot was not initially known but was later confirmed by Sylvia Patrycja, his assistant, via Facebook according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The two seater S-312 Tucano MK1 turbo-prop plane crashed about 9.30am local time on Monday in the Los Padres national forest, said Mike Lindbery, a spokesman for the Ventura County fire service, as reported by The Guardian. No one else was on board.
Horner was an accomplished concert hall composer before he moved into writing film scores. His first major film score was for the 1979 film The Lady In Red (1979), but did not establish himself as a mainstream composer until he worked on the 1982 film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Horner created the musical score both Titanic and Avatar, two of the highest grossing films of all time.
His score for Titanic sold a whopping 27 million copies worldwide!
As the world mourns his unfortunate and tragic demise, we hum Horner’s best tunes as a tribute to the maestro.