Kendall, I think Sorcha deserves a bit more of an answer than that. Stan died on June 2, 1983, at the age of 33. He was on a plane returning to Canada from the Kerrville (Texas) folk festival. A fire on the plane forced an emergency landing in Cincinnati. Most of the people on board died, apparently from smoke inhalation. (That might have been the event that resulted in the law requiring smoke detectors in airplane lavatories, as that's where the fire started.)

There was a story at the time that Stan died as he was trying to help others get out of the plane. I've subsequently heard that wasn't true, but it would be very much in character if it were.

I heard Stan perform on the Philadelphia waterfront in the summer of 1980. The stage was the old Portuguese bark Gazela Primeiro, which was moored there, along with Admiral Dewey's flagship Olympia and the clipper Moshulu. At one point, Stan looked around him, then looked out at the crowd, and said in that powerful voice, "This is a beautiful ship, and by God, Philadelphia, you're lucky to have her!" And we were...to have her, and to have him, that day.

Aloha,
Mark