Stan was returning to Canada from a folk festival in the Southern US when a passenger on his Air Canada flight threw a lit cigarette in a washroom ashtray. The plane caught fire in mid-air and managed to land at an airport in Cincinnatti. While on the ground, a number of passengers managed to usecape using the escape chutes but Stan was overcome by smoke and died on the airplane. Those are, more or less, the facts. The legendary part is that Stan selflessly gave up his own life helping other people to the door through the smoke.

Bob