Peter Frampton has revealed that David Bowie saved his life in 1987, after the cabin of his private plane was filled with smoke ahead of take-off.

At the time of the incident, Frampton, who originally met Bowie at school in Bromley, was attempting to stage a major career comeback – following international success in the '70s with his live release Frampton Comes Alive!, which sold over eight million copies in the US.

Bowie enlisted his old friend to play on his 1987 album Never Let Me Down, as well as the accompanying Glass Spider Tour, which came to Slane Castle on July 11, 1987.

According to the Mirror, Frampton reveals in an extract from his upcoming memoir that the pair were sitting in the private plane awaiting take-off during the tour, when Bowie noticed the cabin filling with smoke.

"Dave stands up and goes, 'Smoke! Smoke!'," Frampton writes. "So the pilot stops and the flight attendant pulls the back stairway down."

"Dave literally lifts me out of my seat and carries me down the chute," he continues. “I will never forget that. He coulda ran out but he wanted to make sure I was okay. That was the kind of guy he was with me, and in general. He was a lovely man.”

In the memoir, Frampton also praises Bowie for bringing him on tour during a rough patch in his career.

"David saw I'd become this fallen pop idol," Frampton reveals. "So what could he do for me? Take me around the world and reintroduce me as a musician."

Frampton's most recent album, All Blues, debuted at No.1 on the Billboard Top Blues Albums Chart on its release last year. In 2019, he also revealed that he has been diagnosed with inclusion body myositis, a degenerative muscle disease. His farewell tour, which was set to take place next month, was cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

Watch live footage from the Glass Spider tour, plus Bowie's 1987 interview with Marty Whelan at Slane Castle, below: