New details emerge about plane crash that killed country music hitmaker

More information has surfaced a month after Brett James, a Grammy Award-winning songwriter, was killed in a plane crash in North Carolina at the age of 57.

James — who was piloting a Cirrus SR22T from Nashville, Tennessee to Franklin, North Carolina — lost control of his aircraft while trying to land on the runway at Macon County Airport (MCA), according to a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board reviewed by PEOPLE.

James “intended to perform a 360° turn to land” at MCA at around 2:48 p.m. local time on Sept. 18. He was at 6,800 feet at the time. As the plane was descending with a left turn, it went into a “tightening spiral” and plummeted into the ground, the report stated.

Surveillance cameras captured this moment as well as “multiple witnesses who reported observing the airplane flying at a low altitude near the airport and over a nearby school playground,” the NTSB report stated.

It was also seen “rocking from side-to-side” before eventually “rolling inverted and descending behind a tree line,” PEOPLE reported, citing the NTSB report.

Air traffic control received no further transmissions from James afterward. His wife, Melody Carole, 59, and her daughter, Meryl Wilson, 28, were also killed in the crash.

James’ plane departed from JCA at 12:41 p.m. and he crashed just over two hours later in an open field in Franklin, about a quarter-mile from MCA, according to flight records. No signs of engine failure were found and the plane was recovered for further examination, PEOPLE reported.

James was a prolific songwriter with 27 No. 1 songs under his belt. He started his professional music career as a solo artist when he signed with Arista Nashville’s imprint Career Records in 1995. He released his self-titled debut album the same year and charted three singles on the Hot Country Songs chart. He charted two more singles in 2002 and 2003.

After shifting his focus to songwriting, James penned hits for Billy Ray Cyrus, Kenny Chesney and Martina McBride, Billboard reported. He landed his first chart-topping hit with “Who I Am” by Jessica Andrews in 2001. James won a Grammy Award for Best Country Song for writing Carrie Underwood’s smash hit “Jesus, Take The Wheel,” which hit No. 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Hot Country Songs chart. The song also won an ACM Award and CMT Award.

James was also twice named ASCAP Country Songwriter of the Year, in 2006 and 2010, and was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2020. Overall, he penned more than 300 major-label tracks including “Blessed” by McBride, “When the Sun Goes Down” and “Out Last Night” by Chesney, “It’s America” for Rodney Atkins and “The Truth” for Aldean.