Autumn Nelon Streetman of The Nelons Shows Her Strength in the Wake of Tragic Plane Crash—‘I Just Lost My Entire Family, All of Them’ (EXCLUSIVE)
It’s a sunny Friday morning at a coffee shop in Hendersonville, TN, just north of downtown Nashville. Looking at the pretty blonde in the lavender shirt sipping water and smiling sweetly, one would never know that just three weeks earlier, her world was turned upside down when she lost her family in a tragic plane crash.
Autumn Nelon Streetman, who is expecting a baby boy in December with her husband Jamie, displays an impressive amount of strength as she fields questions about her life in the wake of such devastating heartache, the faith that sustains her and the legacy of love and music she carries forward.
One of the most beloved groups in southern gospel music, The Nelons had recently recorded a new album, Loving You, which releases on Friday, August 30, via Daywind Music.
On July 26, they were heading to Seattle to board a ship and perform on the Gaither Homecoming Cruise to Alaska, a gathering of all the top names in southern gospel music for a week of singing, fun and fellowship.
Autumn and her husband took a commercial flight from Nashville and the rest of the family were flying to Seattle from Georgia in a private jet. Autumn’s mother, Kelly Nelon Clark, her husband Jason Clark, sister Amber Nelon Kistler and her husband Nathan Kistler, along with friend Melodi Hodges, pilot Larry Haynie and his wife Melissa died in the crash.
Investigators say it could be 12 to 24 months before they determine the reason for the crash, although early reports indicate the autopilot may have malfunctioned.
“We chose to fly commercial because we were flying from here [Nashville] and I didn’t want to drive to Georgia to get on a plane,” Autumn tells Woman’s World. “It was just easier for us and I didn’t think a thing about it. We had a layover in Phoenix. I talked to my mom then. She said, ‘We have just landed in Nebraska. We’re going to eat and then we’ll be on to Billings.’”
The Gospel Music Hall of Fame members never made it to the cruise. The plane went down over Wyoming. Twenty-seven-year-old Autumn learned of the tragedy after landing in Seattle.
“I was in baggage claim and my cousin called me. She was hysterical and I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ She asked if I’d heard from them and I said, ‘What are you talking about? They’re not supposed to land for another 45 minutes.’”
At that point, Autumn hung up and knew something was wrong. “I called my Uncle Todd [Kelly’s brother] and he said, ‘Are you sitting down? I’ve been told that the plane went down.’ I was in shock,” she says. “I think my first words were, ‘Oh no! You’re joking. You are joking,’ even though I knew that that was not something that he would joke about.”
The aftermath of the tragic plane crash
Autumn says her Uncle Todd liked to track the flights the family was on. “We were on that plane—the same plane that they were on—two weeks prior to this going to DC. It was a short flight, maybe an hour and a half and he tracked us then. He’ll get on Flight Tracker where he can see where we are and how much longer we’ve got to go. He was doing the same thing that day. He said, ‘I was watching them and all of a sudden it just went away, and I couldn’t figure out why.’”
Soon, his worst fears were confirmed when he learned the plane had crashed and no one on board survived. Autumn recalls kind staff members from Inspirational Cruises hugging and comforting them as they were taken to the hotel where all the artists were staying before the cruise.
“They took Jamie and I up to the hotel room and when I opened the door, Bill and Gloria [Gaither] were standing there and I looked to my left and Karen Peck was standing there,” she recalls.
“They were all crying, and they didn’t have to say anything. I knew. I looked at Bill and I said, ‘I just lost my entire family, all of them.’ They took me in their arms and we prayed.”
Autumn recalls Gaither calling a meeting to let the other artists know what had happened. “I wanted to go because Gaither is really a big family and I needed to be with those people at that moment,” she says.
“We walked in and you could tell the artists had no idea what was going on. If you’ve been on a Gaither cruise, Bill doesn’t call meetings before a cruise, so they knew something was weird, but obviously you would never imagine something like this. So Bill told them and then we all just sat there and cried and sang and then we prayed. Then Jamie and I flew back home that next morning and started preparations for the service.”
Terry Wyatt/Getty Images for Dove Awards
Autumn Nelon Streetman staying strong
The memorial service for Kelly, Jason, Amber and Nathan was held in Roopville, GA at the Roopville Road Baptist Church on August 6, and in an amazing display of strength, Autumn was able to join the Isaacs as they sang “Family Chain” during the service.
“Two seconds before the funeral started, I looked at my husband Jamie and said, ‘I’m not doing this. I’m not singing. I’m not getting up there. I don’t want to do it.’
“I didn’t want to do it and then it was like the peace of God came over me right before the Isaacs got up there. Before the service, Sonya [Isaacs] and I had a deal. Sonya said, ‘I’m going to look at you when we start going up there and you can either shake your head yes or no. We’ll go with whatever you want,’” Autumn recalls.
“In that moment I just felt okay to do it so I shook my head yes. She was kind of shocked and I was like, ‘I’m okay.’ It was like God was saying, You’re going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay. I’ve got a plan and I’ve got a purpose for your life.”
“I don’t see that right now if I’m being honest with you,” Autumn admits. “It’s still very, very hard. I have good days and I have bad days. There are times when I think I should have told my mama I loved her one more time, but she knew. They all knew.”
Autumn copes with her loss
Autumn admits sometimes, hard days come when she’s least expecting it. A recent visit to PetSmart left her in tears. “I have such a great support team that I was surrounded by people every single day, every day, but I was by myself for the first time since this happened and I had taken my mom’s dog Buddy to get groomed at PetSmart,” she says of her rescue Dachshund.
“I was kind of already sad. There was a song I was listening to about heaven. When I picked up the dog from the groomer, he had a Disney bandana on, and my sister loved Disney. I was a mess. It’s just little things like that. Who would have thought? I think that’s God’s way of saying, ‘They are still here. I’m still going to give reminders of them all around you.’”
Autumn admits at times it seems surreal and then other times, the loss is so palpable, it leaves her angry. “I told my Uncle, ‘I’m angry. I don’t understand why God would allow this to happen.’ And he said, ‘I don’t think there will be a reason that will ever make sense or that will ever make you feel any better.’
“The only peace that I have is that they are in heaven, and I know that what they are seeing now is nothing compared to what we have down here,” Autumn says. “I know that they wouldn’t want to come back, even if they could, they wouldn’t. So that’s what I just tell myself every day. My mom’s parents are up there, and my dad is up there. Amber’s three little babies. They are up there [Amber lost three babies to miscarriages]. I know that they are in a better place, and someday sooner than we think, we’re all going to be there.”
Autumn focuses on the future
As she faces life without her beloved family, Autumn is focusing on the new family on the way — her baby boy, due December 8, who she and her husband are naming Rhett James.
“I’ve been through so much and this is the one thing that’s keeping me happy right now and keeping me going,” she says. “I want him here and it gives me something to look forward to. It keeps me busy, and it keeps my mind off things. I feel fine. I’m honestly having a really good pregnancy; I haven’t been sick or anything like that.”
@autumnnelon/Instagram
As for the future, Autumn is still figuring things out. She and Jamie live north of Nashville, but Kelly and Jason lived on a farm in Georgia, which is also a wedding venue. Although she was initially hesitant, she plans to keep that going.
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“At first, I was just overwhelmed and didn’t want to take on that responsibility. Then the more we thought about it, Jamie said, ‘I really feel led that we need to try to keep this going if we can.’ So we’re going to try and do our best. There’s only six weddings from now until the end of the year and we’re going to try to be at every one.”
Loving You album’s lasting impact
Of course, music was her family’s main focus and she’s extremely proud of their final album Loving You. “Obviously we had no idea that this was going to happen,” she says of the crash. “This was never in our thought process, but I know God had a plan and he knew that this was going to happen even when we didn’t know. I think that this album was made for this time and each song will mean something to everybody. [It’s music] that anybody can relate to. I know it means something to me.”
The last song on the album is “We’ve Always Had a Song,” written by Jason, Wayne Haun and Joel Lindsey. Her mom, Kelly, who is a 2024 inductee into the Southern Gospel Music Hall of Fame, sings lead on the song, which says, “We’ve always had a song to sing/always had a melody/Always had words to write in the best and worst of times.”
The song has inspired Autumn to take a bold step. “I’m going to get my first tattoo. My mom would be rolling over,” she says, noting Kelly would not approve. “It’s going to say, ‘We’ve Always Had a Song.’”
Though southern gospel music had long been a part of her family’s life from the illustrious days with her grandfather Rex Nelon leading the group to her mom taking the reins and shepherding the family’s success in recent years, Autumn admits she’s always been a reluctant performer whereas her sister Amber wanted to sing as soon as she could talk.
“This was not something that I would ever imagined that would happen and I joke and say that they left the one here that was less likely to do any of this by myself,” she says, “but now I ask God, ‘What do you want me to do? What is my purpose in life? What is your calling on my life now? I know what I’m called to do and that is to sing, but how do I do that now when my family is not here beside me?’ So I’m just waiting on Him.”
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