diff --git a/astropy/io/fits/hdu/compressed/src/compression.c b/astropy/io/fits/hdu/compressed/src/compression.c
index e3d9b656a0d3..bcedabec0a19 100644
--- a/astropy/io/fits/hdu/compressed/src/compression.c
+++ b/astropy/io/fits/hdu/compressed/src/compression.c
@@ -90,10 +90,7 @@ PyInit__compression(void)
 // cfitsio call.  In our wrapper functions we can then check if the Python error
 // state is set and then return NULL to raise the error.
 void ffpmsg(const char *err_message) {
-    PyGILState_STATE gstate;
-    gstate = PyGILState_Ensure();
     PyErr_SetString(CfitsioException, err_message);
-    PyGILState_Release(gstate);
 }
 
 /* PLIO/IRAF compression */
diff --git a/docs/changes/io.fits/15489.bugfix.rst b/docs/changes/io.fits/15489.bugfix.rst
deleted file mode 100644
index fa41152973b6..000000000000
--- a/docs/changes/io.fits/15489.bugfix.rst
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-Fix segfault with error report in tile decompression.