diff --git a/python/sglang/srt/entrypoints/engine.py b/python/sglang/srt/entrypoints/engine.py
index 57762532ccc9..50ebacddc8b8 100644
--- a/python/sglang/srt/entrypoints/engine.py
+++ b/python/sglang/srt/entrypoints/engine.py
@@ -1229,24 +1229,49 @@ def _wait_for_scheduler_ready(
     scheduler_pipe_readers: List,
     scheduler_procs: List,
 ) -> List[Dict]:
-    """Wait for the model to finish loading and return scheduler infos."""
+    """Wait for the model to finish loading and return scheduler infos.
+
+    Uses polling to detect child process death quickly, rather than blocking
+    indefinitely on pipe recv(). This prevents the launch from hanging when
+    a child process is killed (e.g. by OOM killer via SIGKILL) before it can
+    send any data through the pipe.
+
+    On each poll timeout, checks ALL processes (not just the current one) so that
+    a death in any rank is detected promptly regardless of iteration order.
+    """
     scheduler_infos = []
     for i in range(len(scheduler_pipe_readers)):
-        try:
-            data = scheduler_pipe_readers[i].recv()
-        except EOFError:
-            logger.error(
-                f"Rank {i} scheduler is dead. Please check if there are relevant logs."
-            )
-            scheduler_procs[i].join()
-            logger.error(f"Exit code: {scheduler_procs[i].exitcode}")
-            raise
+        while True:
+            if scheduler_pipe_readers[i].poll(timeout=5.0):
+                try:
+                    data = scheduler_pipe_readers[i].recv()
+                except EOFError:
+                    scheduler_procs[i].join(timeout=10)
+                    raise RuntimeError(
+                        f"Rank {i} scheduler died during initialization "
+                        f"(exit code: {scheduler_procs[i].exitcode}). "
+                        f"If exit code is -9 (SIGKILL), a common cause is the OS OOM killer. "
+                        f"Run `dmesg -T | grep -i oom` to check."
+                    )
+                scheduler_infos.append(data)
+                break
+            else:
+                # Check ALL processes, not just the current one
+                for j in range(len(scheduler_procs)):
+                    if not scheduler_procs[j].is_alive():
+                        scheduler_procs[j].join(timeout=10)
+                        raise RuntimeError(
+                            f"Rank {j} scheduler died during initialization "
+                            f"(exit code: {scheduler_procs[j].exitcode}). "
+                            f"If exit code is -9 (SIGKILL), a common cause is the OS OOM killer. "
+                            f"Run `dmesg -T | grep -i oom` to check."
+                        )
 
+    for data in scheduler_infos:
         if data["status"] != "ready":
             raise RuntimeError(
                 "Initialization failed. Please see the error messages above."
             )
-        scheduler_infos.append(data)
     return scheduler_infos