diff --git a/pkg/util/httpstream/spdy/roundtripper.go b/pkg/util/httpstream/spdy/roundtripper.go
index c5b3c7d5c51..954f895ad1b 100644
--- a/pkg/util/httpstream/spdy/roundtripper.go
+++ b/pkg/util/httpstream/spdy/roundtripper.go
@@ -25,6 +25,8 @@ import (
 	"net/http"
 	"strings"
 
+	"github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/kubernetes/pkg/api"
+	apierrors "github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/kubernetes/pkg/api/errors"
 	"github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/kubernetes/pkg/util/httpstream"
 	"github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/kubernetes/third_party/golang/netutil"
 )
@@ -137,6 +139,11 @@ func (s *SpdyRoundTripper) NewConnection(resp *http.Response) (httpstream.Connec
 		if err != nil {
 			responseError = "unable to read error from server response"
 		} else {
+			if obj, err := api.Scheme.Decode(responseErrorBytes); err == nil {
+				if status, ok := obj.(*api.Status); ok {
+					return nil, &apierrors.StatusError{*status}
+				}
+			}
 			responseError = string(responseErrorBytes)
 			responseError = strings.TrimSpace(responseError)
 		}