diff --git a/icu4c/source/test/cintltst/cmsgtst.c b/icu4c/source/test/cintltst/cmsgtst.c
index 8fa72dd5642..0d759105daf 100644
--- a/icu4c/source/test/cintltst/cmsgtst.c
+++ b/icu4c/source/test/cintltst/cmsgtst.c
@@ -219,11 +219,18 @@ static void MessageFormatTest( void )
                         austrdup(result), austrdup(testResultStrings[i]) );
                 }
 
+#if defined (U_DARWIN)  /* add platforms here .. */
+                log_verbose("Skipping potentially crashing test for mismatched varargs.\n");
+#else
+                log_verbose("Note: the next is a platform dependent test. If it crashes, add an exclusion for your platform near %s:%d\n", __FILE__, __LINE__); 
+
                 if (returnsNullForType(1, (double)2.0)) {
                     /* HP/UX and possibly other platforms don't properly check for this case.
                     We pass in a UDate, but the function expects a UDate *.  When va_arg is used,
                     most compilers will return NULL, but HP-UX won't do that and will return 2
-                    in this case.  This is a platform dependent test.
+                    in this case.  This is a platform dependent test.  It crashes on some systems.
+            
+                    If you get a crash here, see the definition of returnsNullForType.
 
                     This relies upon "undefined" behavior, as indicated by C99 7.15.1.1 paragraph 2
                     */
@@ -237,6 +244,7 @@ static void MessageFormatTest( void )
                 else {
                     log_verbose("Warning: Returning NULL for a mismatched va_arg type isn't supported on this platform.\n", i);
                 }
+#endif
 
                 umsg_parse(formatter,result,resultLength,&count,&ec,&one,&two,&d2);
                 if(U_FAILURE(ec)){