diff --git a/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-aws-lambda/src/opentelemetry/instrumentation/aws_lambda/__init__.py b/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-aws-lambda/src/opentelemetry/instrumentation/aws_lambda/__init__.py
index e124525c11..fd61b97200 100644
--- a/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-aws-lambda/src/opentelemetry/instrumentation/aws_lambda/__init__.py
+++ b/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-aws-lambda/src/opentelemetry/instrumentation/aws_lambda/__init__.py
@@ -138,19 +138,21 @@ def _default_event_context_extractor(lambda_event: Any) -> Context:
     Returns:
         A Context with configuration found in the event.
     """
-    headers = lambda_event.get("headers")
-    if headers and isinstance(headers, dict):
-        return get_global_textmap().extract(headers)
-
-    records = lambda_event.get("Records")
-    if records and isinstance(records, list) and len(records) == 1:
-        message_attributes = records[0]['messageAttributes']
-        if message_attributes and isinstance(message_attributes, dict):
-            return get_global_textmap().extract(message_attributes, getter=LambdaSqsGetter())
-
-    logger.debug(
-        "Extracting context from Lambda Event failed: either enable X-Ray active tracing or configure API Gateway to trigger this Lambda function as a pure proxy. Otherwise, generated spans will have an invalid (empty) parent context."
-    )
+    try:
+        headers = lambda_event.get("headers")
+        if headers and isinstance(headers, dict):
+            return get_global_textmap().extract(headers)
+
+        records = lambda_event.get("Records")
+        if records and isinstance(records, list) and len(records) == 1:
+            message_attributes = records[0]['messageAttributes']
+            if message_attributes and isinstance(message_attributes, dict):
+                return get_global_textmap().extract(message_attributes, getter=LambdaSqsGetter())
+    except (TypeError, KeyError, AttributeError):
+        logger.debug(
+            "Extracting context from Lambda Event failed: either enable X-Ray active tracing or configure API Gateway to trigger this Lambda function as a pure proxy. Otherwise, generated spans will have an invalid (empty) parent context."
+        )
+
     return get_global_textmap().extract({})
 
 
diff --git a/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-aws-lambda/tests/test_aws_lambda_instrumentation_manual.py b/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-aws-lambda/tests/test_aws_lambda_instrumentation_manual.py
index 00940547ea..5d9b21daff 100644
--- a/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-aws-lambda/tests/test_aws_lambda_instrumentation_manual.py
+++ b/instrumentation/opentelemetry-instrumentation-aws-lambda/tests/test_aws_lambda_instrumentation_manual.py
@@ -266,6 +266,20 @@ def custom_event_context_extractor(lambda_event):
                 expected_state_value=MOCK_W3C_TRACE_STATE_VALUE,
                 xray_traceid=MOCK_XRAY_TRACE_CONTEXT_SAMPLED,
             ),
+            TestCase(
+                name="sqs_single_record",
+                custom_extractor=None,
+                context={
+                    "Records": [
+                        {'messageAttributes': {
+                            TraceContextTextMapPropagator._TRACEPARENT_HEADER_NAME: {'stringValue': MOCK_W3C_TRACE_CONTEXT_SAMPLED, 'stringListValues': [], 'binaryListValues': [], 'dataType': 'String'}
+                        }}
+                    ]
+                },
+                expected_traceid=MOCK_W3C_TRACE_ID,
+                expected_parentid=MOCK_W3C_PARENT_SPAN_ID,
+                xray_traceid=MOCK_XRAY_TRACE_CONTEXT_SAMPLED,
+            )
         ]
         for test in tests: