diff --git a/providers/amazon/src/airflow/providers/amazon/aws/executors/aws_lambda/lambda_executor.py b/providers/amazon/src/airflow/providers/amazon/aws/executors/aws_lambda/lambda_executor.py
index fcf31ed29de6b..bffab39fa6fda 100644
--- a/providers/amazon/src/airflow/providers/amazon/aws/executors/aws_lambda/lambda_executor.py
+++ b/providers/amazon/src/airflow/providers/amazon/aws/executors/aws_lambda/lambda_executor.py
@@ -425,17 +425,26 @@ def process_queue(self, queue_url: str):
                         "Successful Lambda invocation for task %s received from SQS queue.", task_key
                     )
                 else:
-                    # In this case the Lambda likely started but failed at run time since we got a non-zero
-                    # return code. We could consider retrying these tasks within the executor, because this _likely_
-                    # means the Airflow task did not run to completion, however we can't be sure (maybe the
-                    # lambda runtime code has a bug and is returning a non-zero when it actually passed?). So
-                    # perhaps not retrying is the safest option.
                     self.fail(task_key)
-                    self.log.error(
-                        "Lambda invocation for task: %s has failed to run with return code %s",
-                        task_key,
-                        return_code,
-                    )
+                    if queue_url == self.dlq_url and return_code is None:
+                        # DLQ failure: AWS Lambda service could not complete the invocation after retries.
+                        # This indicates a Lambda-level failure (timeout, memory limit, crash, etc.)
+                        # where the function was unable to successfully execute to return a result.
+                        self.log.error(
+                            "DLQ message received: Lambda invocation for task: %s was unable to successfully execute. This likely indicates a Lambda-level failure (timeout, memory limit, crash, etc.).",
+                            task_key,
+                        )
+                    else:
+                        # In this case the Lambda likely started but failed at run time since we got a non-zero
+                        # return code. We could consider retrying these tasks within the executor, because this _likely_
+                        # means the Airflow task did not run to completion, however we can't be sure (maybe the
+                        # lambda runtime code has a bug and is returning a non-zero when it actually passed?). So
+                        # perhaps not retrying is the safest option.
+                        self.log.debug(
+                            "Lambda invocation for task: %s completed but the underlying Airflow task has returned a non-zero exit code %s",
+                            task_key,
+                            return_code,
+                        )
                 # Remove the task from the tracking mapping.
                 self.running_tasks.pop(ser_task_key)