Oscar winning music composer James Horner died at the age of 61 in a plane crash near Santa Barbara on Monday. Horner was piloting the small aircraft when it crashed into a remote area about 60 miles north of Santa Barbara, officials said.
His death was confirmed by Sylvia Patrycja, who is identified on Horner’s film music page as his assistant.
“We have lost an amazing person with a huge heart and unbelievable talent. He died doing what he loved. Thank you for all your support and love and see you down the road,” Patrycja wrote on social networking website Facebook on Monday.
An earlier report noted that the plane, which was registered to the composer, had gone down, but the pilot had not been identified.
Horner won two Oscars for the music of Titanic and scored for other blockbusters like Avatar , Braveheart , and A Beautiful Mind .
Horner captured the Oscar for Original Dramatic Score, and he nabbed another Academy Award for Original Song (shared with lyricist Will Jennings) for “My heart will go on”, performed by Celine Dion. His score for Titanic sold a whopping 27 million copies worldwide.
His fruitful partnership with Cameron also netted him Oscar nominations for original score for the blockbusters in the 1986 film Aliens and 2009 film Avatar .
The duo was also reportedly working on Avatar sequels.
Horner earned 10 Oscar nominations in all, also being recognised for his work on two other Best Picture winners: Braveheart and A Beautiful Mind .
Horner has three films coming out soon — Southpaw , the boxing drama that stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Rachel McAdams and is due in theaters in July; Jean-Jacques Annaud’s Wolf Totem , out in September; and The 33 , a drama based on the 2010 mining disaster in Chile that’s set for November.
