diff --git a/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/engine/InternalEngine.java b/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/engine/InternalEngine.java
index b83c0a70178..335e392495c 100644
--- a/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/engine/InternalEngine.java
+++ b/server/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/index/engine/InternalEngine.java
@@ -1514,9 +1514,14 @@ public class InternalEngine extends Engine {
                             : "Noop tombstone document but _tombstone field is not set [" + doc + " ]";
                         doc.add(softDeletesField);
                         indexWriter.addDocument(doc);
-                    } catch (Exception ex) {
+                    } catch (final Exception ex) {
+                        /*
+                         * Document level failures when adding a no-op are unexpected, we likely hit something fatal such as the Lucene
+                         * index being corrupt, or the Lucene document limit. We have already issued a sequence number here so this is
+                         * fatal, fail the engine.
+                         */
                         if (ex instanceof AlreadyClosedException == false && indexWriter.getTragicException() == null) {
-                            throw new AssertionError("noop operation should never fail at document level", ex);
+                            failEngine("no-op origin[" + noOp.origin() + "] seq#[" + noOp.seqNo() + "] failed at document level", ex);
                         }
                         throw ex;
                     }
@@ -2852,4 +2857,5 @@ public class InternalEngine extends Engine {
         // remove live entries in the version map
         refresh("restore_version_map_and_checkpoint_tracker", SearcherScope.INTERNAL, true);
     }
+
 }
diff --git a/server/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/index/engine/InternalEngineTests.java b/server/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/index/engine/InternalEngineTests.java
index 24872cc3330..f8d516002da 100644
--- a/server/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/index/engine/InternalEngineTests.java
+++ b/server/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/index/engine/InternalEngineTests.java
@@ -5972,4 +5972,29 @@ public class InternalEngineTests extends EngineTestCase {
                 equalTo(seqNos));
         }
     }
+
+    public void testNoOpFailure() throws IOException {
+        engine.close();
+        final Settings settings = Settings.builder()
+            .put(defaultSettings.getSettings())
+            .put(IndexSettings.INDEX_SOFT_DELETES_SETTING.getKey(), true).build();
+        final IndexSettings indexSettings = IndexSettingsModule.newIndexSettings(
+            IndexMetaData.builder(defaultSettings.getIndexMetaData()).settings(settings).build());
+        try (Store store = createStore();
+             Engine engine = createEngine((dir, iwc) -> new IndexWriter(dir, iwc) {
+            @Override
+            public long addDocument(Iterable<? extends IndexableField> doc) throws IOException {
+                throw new IllegalArgumentException("fatal");
+            }
+        }, null, null, config(indexSettings, store, createTempDir(), NoMergePolicy.INSTANCE, null))) {
+            final Engine.NoOp op = new Engine.NoOp(0, 0, PRIMARY, System.currentTimeMillis(), "test");
+            final IllegalArgumentException e = expectThrows(IllegalArgumentException. class, () -> engine.noOp(op));
+            assertThat(e.getMessage(), equalTo("fatal"));
+            assertTrue(engine.isClosed.get());
+            assertThat(engine.failedEngine.get(), not(nullValue()));
+            assertThat(engine.failedEngine.get(), instanceOf(IllegalArgumentException.class));
+            assertThat(engine.failedEngine.get().getMessage(), equalTo("fatal"));
+        }
+    }
+
 }