diff --git a/src/api-service/__app__/onefuzzlib/workers/scalesets.py b/src/api-service/__app__/onefuzzlib/workers/scalesets.py
index 4907111c9..a8b3c1984 100644
--- a/src/api-service/__app__/onefuzzlib/workers/scalesets.py
+++ b/src/api-service/__app__/onefuzzlib/workers/scalesets.py
@@ -468,6 +468,10 @@ class Scaleset(BASE_SCALESET, ORMMixin):
                 SCALESET_LOG_PREFIX + "scaleset is unavailable. scaleset_id:%s",
                 self.scaleset_id,
             )
+            # if the scaleset is missing, this is an indication the scaleset
+            # was manually deleted, rather than having OneFuzz delete it.  As
+            # such, we should go thruogh the process of deleting it.
+            self.set_shutdown(now=True)
             return
 
         if size == self.size: