diff --git a/src/llama-hparams.cpp b/src/llama-hparams.cpp
index c04ac58f1af4b..db65d69eabdcb 100644
--- a/src/llama-hparams.cpp
+++ b/src/llama-hparams.cpp
@@ -140,7 +140,11 @@ uint32_t llama_hparams::n_embd_s() const {
 }
 
 bool llama_hparams::is_recurrent(uint32_t il) const {
-    return recurrent_layer_arr[il];
+    if (il < n_layer) {
+        return recurrent_layer_arr[il];
+    }
+
+    GGML_ABORT("%s: il (%u) out of bounds (n_layer: %u)\n", __func__, il, n_layer);
 }
 
 uint32_t llama_hparams::n_pos_per_embd() const {