An ink jet recording apparatus I includes a printing head 1 configured to house, on the inside, a nozzle 12, a charging electrode 13, a deflection electrode 15, and a gutter 16, a maintenance-pattern storing unit 102b configured to store, respectively in association with types of abnormalities, a plurality of kinds of maintenance operations executable in the ink jet recording apparatus I, a flag storing unit 102a configured to store occurrence of an abnormality in the ink jet recording apparatus I as an error flag corresponding to a type of the abnormality, and a control unit 101 configured to select, based on the type of the abnormality corresponding to the error flag stored in the flag storing unit 102a, one maintenance operation out of the plurality of kinds of maintenance operations stored in the maintenance-pattern storing unit 102b and execute the maintenance operation.