diff --git a/c2rust-transpile/src/translator/mod.rs b/c2rust-transpile/src/translator/mod.rs
index d269e023f1..6d7d1b77da 100644
--- a/c2rust-transpile/src/translator/mod.rs
+++ b/c2rust-transpile/src/translator/mod.rs
@@ -483,7 +483,8 @@ fn clean_path(mod_names: &RefCell<IndexMap<String, PathBuf>>, path: Option<&path
 pub fn translate_failure(tcfg: &TranspilerConfig, msg: &str) {
     error!("{}", msg);
     if tcfg.fail_on_error {
-        panic!("Translation failed, see error above");
+        error!("Translation failed, exiting");
+        std::process::exit(1);
     }
 }
 
diff --git a/scripts/test_translator.py b/scripts/test_translator.py
index ef1c8d675e..9aff69a980 100755
--- a/scripts/test_translator.py
+++ b/scripts/test_translator.py
@@ -86,6 +86,9 @@ def translate(self, cc_db: str, ld_lib_path: str, extra_args: List[str] = []) ->
             "--overwrite-existing",
         ]
 
+        # return nonzero if translation fails
+        args.append("--fail-on-error")
+
         if self.disable_incremental_relooper:
             args.append("--no-incremental-relooper")
         if self.disallow_current_block: