diff --git a/dd-java-agent/instrumentation/elasticsearch/transport-2/src/main/java/datadog/trace/instrumentation/elasticsearch2/TransportActionListener.java b/dd-java-agent/instrumentation/elasticsearch/transport-2/src/main/java/datadog/trace/instrumentation/elasticsearch2/TransportActionListener.java
index fc2cc0b23d..063db70a66 100644
--- a/dd-java-agent/instrumentation/elasticsearch/transport-2/src/main/java/datadog/trace/instrumentation/elasticsearch2/TransportActionListener.java
+++ b/dd-java-agent/instrumentation/elasticsearch/transport-2/src/main/java/datadog/trace/instrumentation/elasticsearch2/TransportActionListener.java
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ public class TransportActionListener<T extends ActionResponse> implements Action
 
     if (response instanceof BaseNodesResponse) {
       final BaseNodesResponse resp = (BaseNodesResponse) response;
-      if (resp.failures().length > 0) {
+      if (resp.failures() != null && resp.failures().length > 0) {
         span.setTag("elasticsearch.node.failures", resp.failures().length);
       }
       span.setTag("elasticsearch.node.cluster.name", resp.getClusterName().value());