diff --git a/gunicorn/workers/async.py b/gunicorn/workers/async.py
index feba3b08..4f8f7d68 100644
--- a/gunicorn/workers/async.py
+++ b/gunicorn/workers/async.py
@@ -118,6 +118,10 @@ class AsyncWorker(base.Worker):
                 raise StopIteration()
         except StopIteration:
             raise
+        except socket.error:
+            # If the original exception was a socket.error we delegate
+            # handling it to the caller (where handle() might ignore it).
+            raise
         except Exception:
             if resp and resp.headers_sent:
                 # If the requests have already been sent, we should close the