diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/optimization/LBFGS.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/optimization/LBFGS.scala
index fd09f35277a09..e9d9b32e52b67 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/optimization/LBFGS.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/optimization/LBFGS.scala
@@ -246,16 +246,24 @@ object LBFGS extends Logging {
       val bcW = data.context.broadcast(w)
       val localGradient = gradient
 
-      val (gradientSum, lossSum) = data.treeAggregate((Vectors.zeros(n), 0.0))(
-          seqOp = (c, v) => (c, v) match { case ((grad, loss), (label, features)) =>
-            val l = localGradient.compute(
-              features, label, bcW.value, grad)
-            (grad, loss + l)
-          },
-          combOp = (c1, c2) => (c1, c2) match { case ((grad1, loss1), (grad2, loss2)) =>
-            axpy(1.0, grad2, grad1)
-            (grad1, loss1 + loss2)
-          })
+      val seqOp = (c: (Vector, Double), v: (Double, Vector)) =>
+        (c, v) match {
+          case ((grad, loss), (label, features)) =>
+            val denseGrad = grad.toDense
+            val l = localGradient.compute(features, label, bcW.value, denseGrad)
+            (denseGrad, loss + l)
+        }
+
+      val combOp = (c1: (Vector, Double), c2: (Vector, Double)) =>
+        (c1, c2) match { case ((grad1, loss1), (grad2, loss2)) =>
+          val denseGrad1 = grad1.toDense
+          val denseGrad2 = grad2.toDense
+          axpy(1.0, denseGrad2, denseGrad1)
+          (denseGrad1, loss1 + loss2)
+       }
+
+      val zeroSparseVector = Vectors.sparse(n, Seq())
+      val (gradientSum, lossSum) = data.treeAggregate((zeroSparseVector, 0.0))(seqOp, combOp)
 
       /**
        * regVal is sum of weight squares if it's L2 updater;
diff --git a/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/optimization/LBFGSSuite.scala b/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/optimization/LBFGSSuite.scala
index 75ae0eb32fb7b..572959200f47f 100644
--- a/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/optimization/LBFGSSuite.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/optimization/LBFGSSuite.scala
@@ -230,6 +230,25 @@ class LBFGSSuite extends SparkFunSuite with MLlibTestSparkContext with Matchers
       (weightLBFGS(0) ~= weightGD(0) relTol 0.02) && (weightLBFGS(1) ~= weightGD(1) relTol 0.02),
       "The weight differences between LBFGS and GD should be within 2%.")
   }
+
+  test("SPARK-18471: LBFGS aggregator on empty partitions") {
+    val regParam = 0
+
+    val initialWeightsWithIntercept = Vectors.dense(0.0)
+    val convergenceTol = 1e-12
+    val numIterations = 1
+    val dataWithEmptyPartitions = sc.parallelize(Seq((1.0, Vectors.dense(2.0))), 2)
+
+    LBFGS.runLBFGS(
+      dataWithEmptyPartitions,
+      gradient,
+      simpleUpdater,
+      numCorrections,
+      convergenceTol,
+      numIterations,
+      regParam,
+      initialWeightsWithIntercept)
+  }
 }
 
 class LBFGSClusterSuite extends SparkFunSuite with LocalClusterSparkContext {