diff --git a/cpp/velox/tests/CMakeLists.txt b/cpp/velox/tests/CMakeLists.txt
index 3052ce23f6..0f5e634b9d 100644
--- a/cpp/velox/tests/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/cpp/velox/tests/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -129,6 +129,7 @@ add_velox_test(
   Substrait2VeloxPlanValidatorTest.cc
   Substrait2VeloxValuesNodeConversionTest.cc
   SubstraitExtensionCollectorTest.cc
+  SubstraitVeloxExprConverterTest.cc
   VeloxSubstraitRoundTripTest.cc
   VeloxSubstraitSignatureTest.cc
   VeloxToSubstraitTypeTest.cc)
diff --git a/cpp/velox/tests/SubstraitVeloxExprConverterTest.cc b/cpp/velox/tests/SubstraitVeloxExprConverterTest.cc
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..0a87b8ee56
--- /dev/null
+++ b/cpp/velox/tests/SubstraitVeloxExprConverterTest.cc
@@ -0,0 +1,66 @@
+/*
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+ * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+ * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+ * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+ * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+ * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+
+#include "substrait/SubstraitToVeloxExpr.h"
+
+#include "velox/common/base/tests/GTestUtils.h"
+#include "velox/type/Type.h"
+
+using namespace facebook::velox;
+
+namespace gluten {
+
+// Regression test for a SIGSEGV in
+// SubstraitVeloxExprConverter::toVeloxExpr(Expression::FieldReference, ...).
+// The direct-reference loop descends one nested struct_field at a time with
+// `inputColumnType = asRowType(childAt(idx))`. When the field path traverses a
+// non-struct child -- e.g. a field nested under an array, as produced by Delta's
+// nested-array UPDATE rewrite ("nested data support - ... updating array type")
+// -- asRowType() returns null and the next iteration dereferenced that null
+// RowType, crashing the whole forked JVM. A SIGSEGV is not catchable, so plan
+// validation could not fall back. The converter must instead throw a
+// VeloxUserError, which SubstraitToVeloxPlanValidator catches to fall back to
+// vanilla execution.
+TEST(SubstraitVeloxExprConverterTest, nestedFieldReferenceIntoNonStructThrows) {
+  // Schema with a single array column.
+  RowTypePtr inputType = ROW({"arr"}, {ARRAY(INTEGER())});
+
+  // Reference column 0 (the array), then descend one more level via a child
+  // struct_field -- i.e. into the array's element, which is not a struct/row.
+  ::substrait::Expression::FieldReference fieldReference;
+  auto* structField = fieldReference.mutable_direct_reference()->mutable_struct_field();
+  structField->set_field(0);
+  structField->mutable_child()->mutable_struct_field()->set_field(0);
+
+  VELOX_ASSERT_THROW(
+      SubstraitVeloxExprConverter::toVeloxExpr(fieldReference, inputType),
+      "Nested field reference into a non-struct type");
+}
+
+// A field-reference index past the end of the row type must be rejected cleanly
+// instead of indexing out of bounds (the raw RowType::childAt/nameOf accessors
+// use unchecked operator[]).
+TEST(SubstraitVeloxExprConverterTest, fieldReferenceIndexOutOfRangeThrows) {
+  RowTypePtr inputType = ROW({"a", "b"}, {INTEGER(), INTEGER()});
+
+  ::substrait::Expression::FieldReference fieldReference;
+  fieldReference.mutable_direct_reference()->mutable_struct_field()->set_field(5);
+
+  VELOX_ASSERT_THROW(SubstraitVeloxExprConverter::toVeloxExpr(fieldReference, inputType), "out of range");
+}
+
+} // namespace gluten