diff --git a/src/rt/rust_task.cpp b/src/rt/rust_task.cpp
index ab29b1067830e510b28a994ae3ced549c84f8734..31a3324f1d46f5dbd56248a284ff7a265a836389 100644
--- a/src/rt/rust_task.cpp
+++ b/src/rt/rust_task.cpp
@@ -86,6 +86,9 @@ rust_task::rust_task(rust_scheduler *sched, rust_task_list *state,
 
     stk = new_stk(sched, this, 0);
     user.rust_sp = stk->limit;
+    if (supervisor) {
+        supervisor->ref();
+    }
 }
 
 rust_task::~rust_task()
@@ -107,6 +110,10 @@ rust_task::~rust_task()
         }
     }
 
+    if (supervisor) {
+        supervisor->deref();
+    }
+
     kernel->release_task_id(user.id);
 
     /* FIXME: tighten this up, there are some more
@@ -294,6 +301,9 @@ rust_task::unsupervise()
              "task %s @0x%" PRIxPTR
              " disconnecting from supervisor %s @0x%" PRIxPTR,
              name, this, supervisor->name, supervisor);
+    if (supervisor) {
+        supervisor->deref();
+    }
     supervisor = NULL;
     propagate_failure = false;
 }
diff --git a/src/test/run-fail/spawnfail.rs b/src/test/run-fail/spawnfail.rs
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..0ff641fbe953f6f318ce28d3349b9fe74dabc79b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/test/run-fail/spawnfail.rs
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+// Currently failure doesn't propagate correctly to owning tasks so xfailed
+// xfail-test
+// error-pattern:explicit
+use std;
+import std::task;
+
+// We don't want to see any invalid reads
+fn main() {
+    fn f() {
+        fail;
+    }
+    let g = f;
+    task::spawn(g);
+}
\ No newline at end of file