diff --git a/src/bin/pg_dump/parallel.c b/src/bin/pg_dump/parallel.c
index bfd023f3e1f..c914c26149f 100644
--- a/src/bin/pg_dump/parallel.c
+++ b/src/bin/pg_dump/parallel.c
@@ -574,8 +574,11 @@ sigTermHandler(SIGNAL_ARGS)
 		write_stderr("terminated by user\n");
 	}
 
-	/* And die. */
-	exit(1);
+	/*
+	 * And die, using _exit() not exit() because the latter will invoke atexit
+	 * handlers that can fail if we interrupted related code.
+	 */
+	_exit(1);
 }
 
 /*