diff --git a/fs/ext4/super.c b/fs/ext4/super.c
index 6e4cac646345..1a5729d8f9ec 100644
--- a/fs/ext4/super.c
+++ b/fs/ext4/super.c
@@ -430,6 +430,12 @@ static void ext4_journal_commit_callback(journal_t *journal, transaction_t *txn)
 	spin_unlock(&sbi->s_md_lock);
 }
 
+static bool system_going_down(void)
+{
+	return system_state == SYSTEM_HALT || system_state == SYSTEM_POWER_OFF
+		|| system_state == SYSTEM_RESTART;
+}
+
 /* Deal with the reporting of failure conditions on a filesystem such as
  * inconsistencies detected or read IO failures.
  *
@@ -460,7 +466,12 @@ static void ext4_handle_error(struct super_block *sb)
 		if (journal)
 			jbd2_journal_abort(journal, -EIO);
 	}
-	if (test_opt(sb, ERRORS_RO)) {
+	/*
+	 * We force ERRORS_RO behavior when system is rebooting. Otherwise we
+	 * could panic during 'reboot -f' as the underlying device got already
+	 * disabled.
+	 */
+	if (test_opt(sb, ERRORS_RO) || system_going_down()) {
 		ext4_msg(sb, KERN_CRIT, "Remounting filesystem read-only");
 		/*
 		 * Make sure updated value of ->s_mount_flags will be visible
@@ -468,8 +479,7 @@ static void ext4_handle_error(struct super_block *sb)
 		 */
 		smp_wmb();
 		sb->s_flags |= SB_RDONLY;
-	}
-	if (test_opt(sb, ERRORS_PANIC)) {
+	} else if (test_opt(sb, ERRORS_PANIC)) {
 		if (EXT4_SB(sb)->s_journal &&
 		  !(EXT4_SB(sb)->s_journal->j_flags & JBD2_REC_ERR))
 			return;