diff --git a/x-pack/plugin/sql/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/sql/planner/SqlTranslatorHandler.java b/x-pack/plugin/sql/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/sql/planner/SqlTranslatorHandler.java
index 277e9da2bc06c..0a29187774dee 100644
--- a/x-pack/plugin/sql/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/sql/planner/SqlTranslatorHandler.java
+++ b/x-pack/plugin/sql/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/sql/planner/SqlTranslatorHandler.java
@@ -37,6 +37,10 @@ public Query asQuery(Expression e) {
     @Override
     public Query wrapFunctionQuery(ScalarFunction sf, Expression field, Supplier<Query> querySupplier) {
         if (field instanceof StDistance && querySupplier.get() instanceof GeoDistanceQuery) {
+            if (true) {
+                throw new RuntimeException("If this code is not dead, QueryTranslatorTests.testTranslateStDistanceToQuery should " +
+                    "trigger this Exception");
+            }
             return ExpressionTranslator.wrapIfNested(querySupplier.get(), ((StDistance) field).left());
         }
         if (field instanceof FieldAttribute) {
diff --git a/x-pack/plugin/sql/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/sql/planner/QueryTranslatorTests.java b/x-pack/plugin/sql/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/sql/planner/QueryTranslatorTests.java
index fd0d46cf67d24..83c1875b33408 100644
--- a/x-pack/plugin/sql/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/sql/planner/QueryTranslatorTests.java
+++ b/x-pack/plugin/sql/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/xpack/sql/planner/QueryTranslatorTests.java
@@ -1334,6 +1334,7 @@ public void testTranslateStDistanceToQuery() {
         assertEquals(20.0, gq.lat(), 0.00001);
         assertEquals(10.0, gq.lon(), 0.00001);
         assertEquals(25.0, gq.distance(), 0.00001);
+        optimizeAndPlan(p);
     }
 
     public void testTranslateStXY() {