diff --git a/buildSrc/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/gradle/testclusters/RunTask.java b/buildSrc/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/gradle/testclusters/RunTask.java
index 9862f28ef6d..a47099ce5a5 100644
--- a/buildSrc/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/gradle/testclusters/RunTask.java
+++ b/buildSrc/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/gradle/testclusters/RunTask.java
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@
  */
 package org.elasticsearch.gradle.testclusters;
 
+import org.gradle.api.GradleException;
 import org.gradle.api.logging.Logger;
 import org.gradle.api.logging.Logging;
 import org.gradle.api.tasks.Input;
@@ -34,6 +35,7 @@ import java.nio.file.Paths;
 import java.util.ArrayList;
 import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Map;
+import java.util.function.BooleanSupplier;
 import java.util.function.Function;
 import java.util.stream.Collectors;
 
@@ -131,11 +133,13 @@ public class RunTask extends DefaultTestClustersTask {
     @TaskAction
     public void runAndWait() throws IOException {
         List<BufferedReader> toRead = new ArrayList<>();
+        List<BooleanSupplier> aliveChecks = new ArrayList<>();
         try {
             for (ElasticsearchCluster cluster : getClusters()) {
                 for (ElasticsearchNode node : cluster.getNodes()) {
                     BufferedReader reader = Files.newBufferedReader(node.getEsStdoutFile());
                     toRead.add(reader);
+                    aliveChecks.add(node::isProcessAlive);
                 }
             }
 
@@ -148,6 +152,10 @@ public class RunTask extends DefaultTestClustersTask {
                     }
                 }
 
+                if (aliveChecks.stream().allMatch(BooleanSupplier::getAsBoolean) == false) {
+                    throw new GradleException("Elasticsearch cluster died");
+                }
+
                 if (readData == false) {
                     // no data was ready to be consumed and rather than continuously spinning, pause
                     // for some time to avoid excessive CPU usage. Ideally we would use the JDK