Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context Main / GoingDownWithTheShip

Go To

1%%%
2%%
3%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Take care to put your example in its proper place in accordance with Administrivia/HowToAlphabetizeThings!
4%%
5%%%
6
7%% Image kept on page per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1482021568051281400
8%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.
9%%
10[[quoteright:340: [[Film/KindHeartsAndCoronets https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/going_down_with_the_ship.jpg]]]]
11[[caption-width-right:340:Duty, honor and dignity, even to the end.]]
12%%
13%% Caption selected per Caption Repair Thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1404492079030138900&page=26
14%% Please do not replace or remove without further discussion there.
15%%
16
17->'''Peter Pan:''' You know the rules, Hook — a good captain ''always'' goes down with his ship!\
18'''Captain Hook:''' ''[Beat]'' I DON'T WANNA BE A GOOD CAPTAIN!
19-->-- ''[[WesternAnimation/ReturnToNeverLand Peter Pan: Return to NeverLand]]''
20
21When a ship is sinking, TheCaptain must [[TheMenFirst be the last one to leave]].
22
23Other crew members typically bear the same obligation, usually so they can [[AbandonShip oversee and direct the evacuation]]. Similar sacrifice was traditionally expected of men, who should allow [[MenAreTheExpendableGender women and children to escape first]] (in comedies, expect a DirtyCoward to dress in drag in order to save his own skin). When PlayedForDrama, [[FaceDeathWithDignity the captain stoically awaits his fate]]. When PlayedForLaughs, the captain is anything but noble and does whatever he can to escape, even [[PromotedToScapegoat appointing someone else captain]] before making a run for it.
24
25The origin of this practice is maritime salvage law — if a ship is abandoned by all the crew but doesn't sink, anyone who comes on board can claim the ship and its contents as salvage, so a senior officer has to remain on board until it becomes clear that the ship really is going down, to prevent the embarrassment of losing the ship to scavengers. (Note that the captain ''is'' clear to leave once everyone else is safely out and the ship is plainly doomed.) There are also other practical reasons, such as if rescue comes, the Captain is the first person the rescuers would contact to coordinate rescue efforts, and that would be incredibly difficult if the captain is no longer on the ship.
26
27In modern cases, captains go down with the ship because they will [[MyGreatestFailure face major disgrace if they don't]], [[DeathEqualsRedemption especially if the ship is only sinking because of their screw-up]], or if there are passengers or junior crew still on board. This tradition has been transferred to aviation, since TheSkyIsAnOcean. In the event of a crash, the commanding pilot is expected to make sure everyone else escapes first and has final responsibility on the well-being of the people and if possible the equipment.
28
29Because also SpaceIsAnOcean, this also applies to [[CoolStarship starship]] captains, even though [[TwoDSpace there's no (literal) "down" for them to go]]...unless they happen to be near a planet that they can crash on.
30
31Compare InItsHourOfNeed and StandYourGround. No relation to DieForOurShip, ShipSinking, or just {{Shipping}} in general.
32
33!!As this is a {{Death Trope|s}}, [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff unmarked spoilers abound]]. [[Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned Beware]].
34----
35!!Examples:
36[[foldercontrol]]
37
38[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
39* [[spoiler:[[DisappearedDad Clyde Harlaown]]]] in ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAs'', who remained in the [[CoolStarship Hestia]] when the [[ArtifactOfDoom Book of Darkness]] started taking control of the ship's systems so that he can ensure that all of his surviving crew members escape. Once he was sure that everyone else had evacuated, [[HeroicSuicide he asked for the ship accompanying them to open fire on the Hestia]], as the Book of Darkness had already taken over the Hestia's weapon systems by that time and was going to fire first if they don't.
40* The finale of ''Anime/FutureBoyConan'' contains a non-vehicle example: the empire of Industria ends up sinking because of the aftereffects of the same weapons that [[FloodedFutureWorld sank most of Earth's surface]] [[AfterTheEnd two decades earlier]]. The scientists who'd run Industria for most of its history evacuate its remaining population beforehand, but then [[DrivenToSuicide walk off the boat to be killed]], as Dr. Lao revealed the technology they'd developed was a direct predecessor to the [[NuclearWeaponsTaboo geomagnetic weapons]].
41* ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'':
42** Played straight in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED'' and ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDDestiny SEED Destiny]]'' by [[spoiler:Natarle, who goes down with the [[EvilCounterpart Dominion]] when she [[TakingYouWithMe locks Muruta Azrael in with her on the bridge]] while the rest of the crew evacuates on her orders, and Captain Todaka, who goes down with ORB's flagship carrier when he (deliberately) leads it to ruin and is killed by Shinn in the Impulse.]]
43** Averted in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam00''. [[spoiler:Christina tricks Feldt into joining Sumeragi and Ian Vashti in a support craft moments before the Ptolemaios is destroyed. Few minutes afterwards, she and Lichty end up TogetherInDeath]].
44** ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamIronBloodedOrphans'': In episode 40, after getting framed for transporting illegal weapons, [[spoiler:Naze]] has the rest of the Turbines evacuate the ship with the intent to take the punishment by himself. [[spoiler:Amida decides to stay with him]].
45* {{Inverted}} in an early episode of ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'' when the St. Anne sails into rough waters, the [[DirtyCoward Captain]] immediately jumps into a lifeboat, sparking a [[AbandonShip panicked evacuation]] of everyone else.
46* Played straight on all sides in the ''Anime/SpaceBattleshipYamato'' series. [[BackForTheDead Captain Okita]], ''Yamato's'' original captain in the series (until cancer forced him to give the seat to Susumu Kodai), goes down with her at the conclusion of ''Final Yamato'', originally the GrandFinale of the original 1975 series.
47* This was the fate of [[spoiler:Captain Gloval]] in the final episode of the first season of ''Anime/{{Robotech}}'' (his Japanese equivalent in the original ''Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross'' survived).
48* In ''Literature/LegendOfTheGalacticHeroes'', Admiral Bucock and his captain, as well as many others during the Battle of Mar-Ardetta.
49[[/folder]]
50
51[[folder:Comic Books]]
52* It's only briefly discussed in one flashback scene, but this was the fate of ComicBook/{{Bamse}}'s grandfather. His ship sank, and as a captain he saw it as his duty to see everyone else to safety before he himself left the ship. It's implied that he was the only one who didn't make it off the ship in the end.
53* This trope was occasionally used in Jonah (a comic strip in ''ComicBook/TheBeano'' about a man who managed to sink every ship he went on).
54* PlayedForLaughs in one of the ''Commando War Stories''. A coxswain in [=WW2=] is warned that if he puts a scratch on the landing boat he's steering for shore, the Navy will take it out of his pay. The coxswain quips that now he knows why the captain always goes down with his ship. "I'd hate to fork out for a battleship!"
55* The French-Belgian comic ''ComicBook/LesTuniquesBleues'' has an album containing two subversions to this:
56** First, when a boat Chesterfield and Blutch are sailors on gets sunk, they are outraced by the captain swimming to the safety of a lifeboat.
57** When a later ship gets sunk, the captain stayed on board till the end, and the sailors all salute their captain's bravery... Only for the following shot showing the captain sitting at the bottom of the sea, sighing: "I couldn't tell them I can't swim!"
58* In one issue of ''ComicBook/SonicX'', "Captain Eggman" promotes his cannon to captain and tells it to go down with the ship after Sonic damages it.
59[[/folder]]
60
61[[folder:Comic Strips]]
62* ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'': In one strip, a lone man remains on a sinking ship while the rest of the crew (including a man who is obviously the Captain) rows away. He wonders to himself if "The cook always goes down with the ship" really is a maritime tradition, or the others just lied to him.
63[[/folder]]
64
65[[folder:Films — Animation]]
66* Implied, offscreen example in the ''Manga/{{Doraemon}}'' film, ''Anime/DoraemonNobitaAndTheCastleOfTheUnderseaDevil''. The gang explores a shipwreck at the bottom of the Devil's Triangle, and finds what's left of the SkeletonCrew - the uniformed captain sitting at his quarters as a pile of bones, with nary a second skeleton in sight.
67* In ''[[WesternAnimation/ReturnToNeverLand Peter Pan: Return to NeverLand]]'', when a giant octopus is about to sink Captain Hook's ship, he begs Peter Pan to save him from drowning, to which Peter Pan mockingly answers: "You know the rules, Hook! A good captain ''always'' goes down with his ship!". Captain Hook's reply? "I DON'T WANNA BE A GOOD CAPTAIN!".
68* ''WesternAnimation/ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnythingAVeggieTalesMovie'': Robert remains on his ship when it's sinking and his henchmen have all bailed out. However, he doesn't stay on it long after it's sunk.
69[[/folder]]
70
71[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]
72* In ''Film/AssaultOnAQueen'', the treasure hunters find the body of the U-boat captain still at the periscope. Eric explains that he would have ordered the crew off and then submerged the sub and blown the ballast tanks to keep it out of enemy hands.
73* In 1959's ''[[Film/BenHur1959 Ben-Hur]]'', the galley captain tells titular captive Judah Ben-Hur that he won't escape as long as the Roman legion who controls the ship is able to but in case they lose control to outside forces, Ben-Hur, not his Roman captors, will sink with the rest of the slaves, chained to their assigned oars.
74* ''Film/TheBlackHole''. Invoked by Captain Reinhardt to explain why he's the only person left on the ''Cygnus'', which is manned by a crew of robots, the human crew having supposedly abandoned the spaceship but never made it back to Earth. It doesn't take long for the protagonists to find this story doesn't hold water.
75* Symbolically in ''Film/DasBoot''. Right as the U-boat returns to base, the British launch an air raid. Lt. Werner finds the Captain watching the boat sink at the dock. After it slips beneath the waves, the Captain collapses.
76* Used as part of the ruse in ''Film/TheHuntForRedOctober'': Ramius fakes a reactor meltdown to get the men off his ship, telling them that he will scuttle the ship before the Americans can get it. Ironically, this is the complete opposite of his actual intentions.
77* Used in ''Film/KindHeartsAndCoronets'': "...all hands were saved, save one. Admiral Lord Horatio D'Ascoyne, obstinate to the last, insisted on going down with his ship."
78* In another Ealing comedy, ''Film/TheLadykillers1955'', Mrs. Wilberforce relates that this is how her late husband died.
79* ''Film/TheLegendOf1900'': [[spoiler: The protagonist chooses to not leave the ship, which was scheduled to be scuttled and sunk far offshore.]]
80* ''Film/Midway2019'': After the ''Hiryū'' is severely damaged in the titular battle, her Captain, Tomeo Kaku as well as Rear Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi elect to stay aboard the crippled aircraft carrier as the surviving Japanese Navy ships scuttle her. [[TruthInTelevision As it happened in real life]].
81* ''Film/MorningDeparture'': As captain of the ''Trojan'', Armstrong volunteers to be one of the four who remain on the sunken sub and wait for the rescue team.
82* ''Film/TheNavalCommandos'' sees the crew of the ill-fated Taiwanese cruiser, ''Ning-hai'', being obliterated by a powerful Japanese aircraft carrier called the Izumo, and when the ''Ning hai'' begins sinking, her captain (played by Creator/TiLung in a DeathByCameo moment) tells all the sailors to bail while remaining behind as the ship blows apart.
83* In ''Film/ANightToRemember'', Captain Smith himself is last seen walking onto the bridge (presumably deciding to go down with the ship). Also shown are the band which played as the ship sank and a few passengers who ''intentionally'' stay aboard for one reason or another. There's even a sub-plot about a young married couple who initially want to stay behind just so they can remain together, but are talked out of it by Thomas Andrews, the architect who ironically went down with the ship himself.
84* A tragic version of this happens in a flashback scene in ''Film/{{Pandorum}}'', describing the greatest disaster in space ([[spoiler:before Earth itself is destroyed]]) due to the titular syndrome. A spaceship captain goes insane and ejects all 5000 sleeping pods into space. Presumably, they all suffocated before he died, the last person aboard.
85* In ''Film/ThePerfectStorm'', this happens with [[spoiler: Captain Billy Tyne, when the ''Andrea Gail'' is capsized by a giant wave the crew had tried to drive over. Most of the crew are trapped in the lower deck, and have no choice but to go down with the ship. Tyne and Bobby are able to escape, but only Bobby gets out but drowns sometime later, while Tyne remains behind and goes down]]. Of course, seeing as [[spoiler: there were no survivors among the crew of the real-life ''Andrea Gail'']], this is all conjecture.
86* ''Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean''
87** ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanDeadMansChest''. The Kraken destroys the Black Pearl with Captain Jack Sparrow [[spoiler:handcuffed]] aboard.
88-->'''Palifico:''' The captain goes down with his ship.
89** In ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanAtWorldsEnd'', Beckett [[StunnedSilence stands stoic at the helm]] and goes down with his ship as both the Black Pearl and [[spoiler: the redeemed Flying Dutchman captained by Will]] do a run-by and blast him to oblivion.
90* Averted in Italian-Soviet film ''Film/TheRedTent1969''. Umberto Nobile is the first to be evacuated from the survivors of an airship crash at the North Pole. The film deals with his guilt over this act, as he faces an imaginary court of colleagues involved in the disaster.
91* Played with in ''Film/{{Spaceballs}}''. When Dark Helmet, Colonel Sandurz and President Skroob are standing in front of the last escape pod, President Skroob says: "Well boys, it's a very lovely ship. I think you should go down with it." This doesn't pan out, as the bear from the onboard zoo steals the pod.
92* ''Franchise/StarTrek'' films:
93** In ''Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome'', when the Bird-of-Prey crashes in San Francisco Bay, Kirk is the last one to leave after opening the cargo bay to release the whales.
94** In ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'', Picard and Riker are the last ones to leave the wreck of the ''Enterprise''-D.
95** In ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'', even after Picard reluctantly agrees to set the self-destruct sequence on the ''Enterprise''-E in order to destroy the Borg, he remains behind due to the fact that Data is still in the Borg's clutches.
96** In ''Film/StarTrek2009'', [[YouAreInCommandNow newly-promoted Captain]] George Kirk goes down with the USS ''Kelvin'' -- he sets the ship on a collision course with the attacking Romulan ship (to prevent it from [[SinkTheLifeboats attacking any of the escape pods]]), but the ship's autopilot is damaged. So he manually pilots the ''Kelvin'' and uses his last words [[TearJerker to tell his wife he loves her.]]
97** ''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness'':
98*** InvokedTrope by Harrison; he keeps his promise to return a captive Kirk, but only because he plans to destroy the ''Enterprise'' as well, saying mockingly, "No ship should go down without her captain."
99*** [[spoiler:Acting Captain Spock intends to do this as the ''Enterprise'' is crashing, in order to buy time for everyone else to escape, but Sulu and the rest of the bridge crew won't abandon him]].
100** In ''Film/StarTrekBeyond'', Captain Kirk is the last person to eject from the ship, using an EscapePod launched from the bridge itself, presumably with this trope in mind as they are called [[CallBack Kelvin pods]].
101* ''Franchise/StarWars'':
102** Very much defied by General Grievous in ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith''. Not only does he abandon the rapidly-disintegrating ''Invisible Hand'', he also launches every EscapePod in the process, making damn sure that he's the ''only'' one who escapes.
103** During the Battle of Hoth in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', Princess Leia stays inside Echo Base, while it is already being invaded by Imperial troops and after plenty of Rebel troops have been evacuated. This causes her to be too late to evacuate on a Rebel transport ship and Han Solo takes her onboard the ''Millennium Falcon'' instead.
104** In ''Film/TheLastJedi'', Vice Admiral Holdo evacuates the Resistance flagship ''Raddus'' before personally [[RammingAlwaysWorks hyper-jumping it through Snoke's flagship]], destroying both ships and shredding the rest of the First Order armada with lightspeed shrapnel.
105* In the 1955 war movie ''The Sea Chase'', Creator/JohnWayne plays Captain Ehrlich, a German merchant captain who's trying to get back to Germany past Royal Navy patrols. They eventually catch up with him and he orders his crew to AbandonShip, but stays on board because he intends to try ramming the British warship. In a variation on the trope, Captain Ehrlich also orders the [[TokenEvilTeammate Token Nazi Officer]] to stay on board with him to operate the ship's engines, but he's a DirtyCoward and tries pulling a gun on Ehrlich only to get knocked unconscious. Then it turns out Ehrlich's LoveInterest has stayed on board as well, so he tries to lower the colors and surrender but is wounded by an exploding shell. She's last seen trying to get him to a lifeboat, but the movie leaves it ambiguous as to whether anyone survived.
106* ''Film/{{Titanic|1997}}'' is full of this. Apart from the captain himself, there's the band who remain on deck (which actually happened in RealLife) and anyone who took the orders of "women and children first out" to heart.
107* ''Film/UnderTenFlags'': Captain Windsor refuses to abandon the ship he's captained for thirty years, but the German BoardingParty just tell him he's got five minutes to collect his things and get dressed. We then see him grim faced on the German raider with the other prisoners as demolition charges send his ship to the bottom. Ironically he ends up going down with the raider when it's sunk at the end of the movie, but he urges the German captain to save himself, having come to respect him.
108* In ''{{Film/Yamato}}'', during the ill fated Operation Ten-Go, the ''Yamato'' is mortally damaged by American air attack. Both of the senior officers in charge, Vice-Admiral Seiichi Itō and Captain Kōsaku Aruga decide to stay on the bridge after giving the order to abandon ship, and they would both ultimately perish just like [[TruthInTelevision in real life]]. The film though, implies that Vice-Admiral Itō commits suicide before the ship sinks.
109[[/folder]]
110
111[[folder:Jokes]]
112* "Ladies and gentlemen, if you'll look out the right side of the aircraft you'll notice that the engine has caught fire. If you look out the left, you'll see my parachute, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your flight."
113[[/folder]]
114
115[[folder:Literature]]
116* A lighthearted subversion happens in ''Literature/TheAdventuresOfCaptainWrongel'', when Captain Wrongel rescues a Norwegian ship. The Norwegian captain is ready to go down with the ship or be the last to leave, but the rescue occurs a) during a storm at night, meaning in pitch-black darkness, b) from above (ItMakesSenseInContext), so Wrongel's first mate, as he pulls the sailors off the deck, accidentally grabs the captain first. The captain isn't happy and Vrungel also feels awkward, but since the entire crew ultimately gets saved, nobody bothers with the matter for long.
117* [[spoiler: Captain Magnanimous and his crew]] in ''Literature/AlexAndTheIronicGentleman''. [[spoiler: They get better.]]
118* ''Literature/AllHands!'' has Captain Harcourt ramming his dying ship into his opponent. He gets bonus points for being at the helm.
119* A variation happens in Creator/MikhailAkhmanov's ''Literature/ArrivalsFromTheDark: Fighters of Danwait'', when the novel's protagonist finds himself in a no-win situation with a much more powerful enemy ship. He orders the ship's semi-sentient computer to eject the two other crewmembers (who are sealed in personal pods) and sets a collision course for the enemy's {{Antimatter}} gun. The ship decides to alter the plan slightly by ejecting the captain as well a few seconds before the collision. The collision results in the loss of containment for the {{Antimatter}} and the destruction of both ships. The protagonist wakes up a week later having barely survived the blast.
120* Played very straight by Captain Jack Aubrey of the ''Literature/AubreyMaturin'' saga. In the book "Desolation Island", the HMS Leopard springs a very large leak and is in danger of sinking. Captain Aubrey lets the men bring out the boats and gives his First Lieutenant dispatches for the authorities, while he himself prepares to go down with the ship. The situation eventually improves, thankfully.
121* Invoked by Thorn in the ''Literature/{{Brotherband}}'' book ''The Hunters.'' After stopping Zavac from knifing Hal, he uses his false arm to trap the pirate in the cabin of his sinking ship.
122* Joseph Conrad's uber-depressing short story ''The End of the Tether'' was about a Captain who went down with his ship, but that was entirely for the life insurance.
123* Creator/JohnMFord added this trope to the Klingon mindset in ''Literature/TheFinalReflection''. The captain of a Klingon warship is free to send his crew to safety before the ship goes kablooey, but is expected to remain behind himself. (The saying "Kahless' Hand" refers to the first Klingon emperor, who tied his hand to his command chair so no one could say he'd ducked out.)
124* ''Literature/FoundationSeries'': Creator/HarryTurtledove's "Literature/TrantorFalls": With Trantor nearly conquered, [[KingBobTheNth Emperor Dagobert VIII]] extends an invitation to Dr Yokim Sarns to take him along as they evacuate the planet. Dr Sarns politely refuses, saying that his duty is to stay with the University because he is the Dean of the school.
125* In Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''Literature/LineOfDelirium: Emperors of Illusions'', Admiral Lemak's destroyer is hijacked while in hyperspace, and the hijacker forces the bridge crew to prepare to exit hyperspace without first decelerating. This would result in the ship entering real space at relativistic speed, and TimeDilation would ensure that, in the time it takes the ship to slow down, a century may pass in the outside universe. The Admiral gives in and releases the prisoners, as the hijacker demands. However, attempts to retake the bridge result in the deceleration being held off long enough to ensure the unfortunate outcome. In the minute before dropping out of hyperspace, Lemak announces to the crew what is happening and urges anyone who has [[ResurrectiveImmortality aTan]] to kill themselves immediately (they will be resurrected on the nearest colony). Despite himself having aTan, Lemak chooses to stay with the ship and those members of the crew who don't have it, although he cries as the ship is passing into the unknown future.
126* In ''Literature/TheLostFleet'' this was believed to have been the fate of John Geary. He ordered his crew to the [[EscapePod Escape Pods]] while he stayed on the bridge to run the ship and cover their escape. However once they were safely clear he did evacuate in an escape pod, but since the pod in question was damaged he had to go into [[HumanPopsicle survival sleep]] and wasn't rescued until nearly a century later.
127** Captain Falco seems to do this in spirit if not in fact since he's not actually the captain but thinks he is. After his mutiny resulted in several ships being destroyed he has a [[SanitySlippage breakdown]] and loses contact with reality. Later the ship that he's being held prisoner on is destroyed and while he doesn't survive several of the crew who do report that he was issuing orders and helping to organize the evacuation before the ship exploded.
128* Invoked in Creator/RobertWestall's ''Literature/TheMachineGunners'' with Nicky Nichol's dad, who went down with his ship when it was torpedoed.
129* Averted in ''Literature/MobyDick''. When Moby-Dick sinks the Pequod, Ahab curses it for denying him this honor.
130* In Creator/DaleBrown's ''Sky Masters'', the Chinese Admiral fails to invade Mindanao, and his ship gets struck by the Americans' satellite. With his ship sinking he decides to sink with the ship and shoot himself, because even if he lives, he'll get court martialed, scapegoated for everything and executed by his superiors.
131* The poem "Soldier an' Sailor Too" written by Creator/RudyardKipling.
132--> To take your chance in the thick of a rush, with firing all about,
133--> Is nothing so bad when you've cover to 'and, an' leave an' likin' to shout;
134--> But to stand an' be still to the Birken'ead drill is a damn tough bullet to chew,
135--> An' they done it, the Jollies -- 'Er Majesty's Jollies -- soldier an' sailor too!
136--> Their work was done when it 'adn't begun; they was younger nor me an' you;
137--> Their choice it was plain between drownin' in 'eaps an' bein' mopped by the screw,
138--> So they stood an' was still to the Birken'ead drill, soldier an' sailor too
139* ''Literature/StarWarsLostStars'': Ciena tries to do this after the Rebels board her Star Destroyer and have sabotaged it's self-destruct mechanism in hopes of taking the vessel. She's required to prevent this, and knows that doing so while surviving would never be justified in the Empire's eyes (i.e. she'd be shot). Flying it into Jakku below will accomplish this, plus be a means of suicide, as she's in despair over serving a government she knows is evil but feels duty-bound not to betray. Thane prevents her from doing so.
140* In the ''Literature/{{Temeraire}}'' series, dragons and their captains tend to die together. In part this is because they are usually falling from a great height with no kind of rescue equipment (such as a parachute) and so the ''whole'' crew dies unless another dragon is close enough to help, but given the powerful emotional bond between dragon and captain, many of them wouldn't save themselves even if they were able.
141** In one case the dragon takes a face full of acid and is dying painfully. The majority of the crew are able to jump accross to other dragons (friendly and enemy) but the captain instead crawls out on the dragons neck to give them a MercyKill
142* Creator/HPLovecraft's short story ''Literature/TheTemple'', a SubStory set during World War I is essentially one big story about this. Once it becomes clear the odds of surviving are next to non-existent without surrendering, the Captain decides that not only he, but ''the entire crew'' should go down with the submarine. He is, however, the only one who lives long enough to see the submarine hit the bottom, and the story ends with him donning a suit and wandering toward a sunken temple where he will presumably die of suffocation.
143* In Golding's ''To The Ends Of The Earth'' trilogy, it happens to [[spoiler:newly-made Commander Summers]] when the old ship catches fire and sinks. In the book he apparently has no time to flee, in the TV mini-series he could but he doesn't.
144* Averted by [[DirtyCoward Admiral Trigit]] in ''[[Literature/XWingSeries Wraith Squadron]]''. His fleeing his damaged but still combat-capable Star Destroyer prompts the beginnings of [[spoiler:Gara Petothel]]'s HeelFaceTurn. She blows the whistle on him to Wraith Squadron, and Myn Donos shoots him down.
145** Subverted in ''[[Literature/XWingSeries The Bacta War]]'' when Captain Joak Drysso of the ''Lusankya'' proclaims he is willing to go down with the ship to prevent its capture by New Republic, even going so far as to ram the ship into the planet Thyferra. However, while Drysso is willing to go down with the ship, his crew most certainly are not, resulting in him being shot in a mutiny.
146[[/folder]]
147
148[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
149* ''Series/AltaMar'': No matter the disaster, no matter the number of times he's had his authority stripped and returned, Captain Santiago will not abandon ship. [[spoiler: By the end of Season 3, every character who had captained the ''Barbara Braganza'' went down with the ship.]]
150* ''Series/BabylonFive'':
151** {{Discussed|Trope}} in the episode "[[Recap/BabylonFiveS01E20BabylonSquared Babylon Squared]]". The last remaining crew members of [[spoiler:Babylon 4]] are being evacuated before the it gets drawn back into a NegativeSpaceWedgie. As it is [[CollapsingLair unclear]] if [[spoiler:Babylon 4]] will survive the transition, Commander Sinclair compares it to [[SpaceIsAnOcean a great old ship sinking]]. Garibaldi [[AvertedTrope reminds his commander]] that he is emphatically ''not'' TheCaptain there and he is ''not'' going down with the ship. ([[spoiler:This [[{{Foreshadowing}} foreshadows]] the fact that his [[MyFutureSelfAndMe future self]] is also on Babylon 4, and was in fact [[StableTimeLoop part of the team]] that [[TimeTravelTenseTrouble will have caused]] the NegativeSpaceWedgie in the first place.]]) Sinclair and Garibaldi are the last ones off the station.
152** Shortly before that, in the same episode, the man who ''is'' in command there had just taken off to get to the shuttles himself, but only after [[TheMenFirst seeing the rest of his crew off]] and imploring Sinclair and Garibaldi to get going rather than [[spoiler:staying behind to try and save Zathras, who had appeared shortly before all of their problems began]].
153* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'': Lee Adama, Commander of the Pegasus, is the last to leave the ship (and says the customary good-bye) before it takes off on a collision course with the Cylon Baseships. Also in Season 4, [[spoiler: Adama is the last to leave the Galactica, except for Sam who is now more part of the ship than part of the crew]].
154* In the final episode of ''Series/BlakesSeven'', "[[Recap/BlakesSevenS4E13Blake Blake]]", Scorpio is shot down by gunships while RunningTheBlockade and is ComingInHot. The crew teleport out but Tarrant stays on the controls because if he releases them, Scorpio will flip over and break up before they can reach the teleport pad. When Avon hesitates (ever since his arrival on the series, Tarrant and Avon are involved in a running dispute over who should be TheCaptain), Tarrant points out that he's the only one with the [[AcePilot skill to pilot the crashing spaceship]], as it's already passed beyond the MasterComputer's ability to do so. [[spoiler:Tarrant survives the crash, only to get killed along with everyone else in the climatic final scene.]]
155* {{Discussed|Trope}} in ''Series/ComeBackMrsNoah'' when the crew of Britannia Seven find the rescue shuttle doesn't have room for everyone, so start squabbling over [[ColdEquation who's going to be left behind]].
156-->'''Fanshaw:''' What's more, you are the captain of the space station!\
157'''Carstairs:''' What's that got to do with it?\
158'''Fanshaw:''' By tradition the captain goes down with the ship.\
159'''Cunliffe:''' In your case you can stay up with it.
160** When the Britannia Seven is about to accidentally launch into space, the crew tries to evacuate using the emergency suction tube; but because Mrs. Noah is sent first she just gets stuck in the tube preventing everyone else from leaving.
161* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
162** This almost happens to Captain Jack Harkness at the end of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E10TheDoctorDances "The Doctor Dances"]]. He uses his ship to capture a German bomb about to kill the Doctor and Rose. Unfortunately, the bomb has already started the explosion sequence, and the only thing keeping it from exploding is a stasis field. However, the bomb ''is'' exploding slowly. Already in space, Jack orders the ship to jettison the bomb, only to receive the reply that this will cause the bomb to explode while inside the ship. Realizing it's over, he asks the ship to mix him a martini ("Ooh, too much vermouth! See if I ever come ''here'' again!) and prepares to die in just the same way he does everything else -- with ''buckets'' of style. Then the Doctor shows up in the TARDIS to ruin the moment by saving the LovableRogue.
163** This happens with the captain of the space cruiser liner ''Titanic'' in [[Recap/DoctorWho2007CSVoyageOfTheDamned "Voyage of the Damned"]]. However, in this case, the captain is the one who causes its collision with meteors, having been paid to do so to care for his family. He stays on the bridge and dies during the impact. However, the Doctor manages to save the ship (but not [[spoiler:[[AlwaysSaveTheGirl the girl]]]]).
164** In "[[Recap/DoctorWho50thPrequelTheNightOfTheDoctor The Night of the Doctor]]", Cass has stayed behind to operate the teleport and get her crew off. The Doctor shows up to save her, but when she realises [[TheDreaded he is a Time Lord]] she elects to stay on her ship until it crashes rather than go with him. The Doctor also elects to go down with the ship rather than abandon her.
165* ''Series/{{Farscape}}''
166** Near the end of Season 3, Crichton plots to destroy Scorpius's Command Carrier in order to stop the Wormhole Weapons project. The plan is successful, executed in such a manner that the ship collapses in on itself, thus allowing the majority of the crew to escape. Crichton then encounters Scorpius in the hangar, where Scorpius laments the destruction of his life's work, and his fears of the pending conflict with the Scarrans. When Crichton tells him that if he's going to leave now would be the time, Scorpius's remarks invoke this trope. Of course he survives, but it's the one time in the entire series we see Scorpius well and truly ''defeated''.
167** Averted in "[[Recap/FarscapeS01E19Nerve Nerve]]"; when a Peacekeeper base has a reactor meltdown, its commander is the first to head for a Prowler to escape.
168--->'''Chiana:''' But I thought the Commander was meant to be the last one to evacuate.\
169'''Commander Javio:''' It's funny; [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem I believe just the opposite.]]
170** He's not the only one; Captain Durka kills a junior officer and takes his uniform in an attempt to escape the destruction of the Zelbinion.
171* In ''{{Series/Firefly}}'' when ''Serenity'' is crippled Mal sends the rest of the crew off in the shuttles and stays on board. He claims this is because someone might hear their distress signal, but Inara at least assumes that he's doing this. In the end the crew, who had little better chances of survival in the shuttles in any case, come back to join him.
172* ''Series/GilligansIsland'':
173** The second episode has the castaways gathered in an extra-strong hut to weather a storm. When it begins to look like it might collapse around them, Skipper orders Gilligan to lead the others to safety while he goes down with the hut.
174** In another episode, the castaways find a life raft and, after repairing it, intend to use it to sail off the island and back to civilization, only for it to sink due to everyone but Gilligan bringing along a bag of gold. As the raft sinks, Gilligan asks Skipper if he intends to go down with it:
175--->'''Skipper''': I hope not, but if I go, you'll go with me!
176%%* ''Series/{{JAG}}'': The Russian destroyer captain in "Cowboys & Cossacks" invokes this.
177* In the series finale of ''Series/LastResort'', Captain Marcus Chaplin stays on the bridge of his crippled submarine to make sure that no further surprises occur before the F-18's destroy the Colorado.
178* The ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' sketch [[http://www.montypython.net/scripts/ww1.php "World War 1"]] has a ship captain announcing "women and children first!", then we see that the captain and crew are all dressed as women and children... and other costumes, which forces the captain to change the announcement to "women, children, Red Indians, spacemen, and a sort of idealized version of complete Renaissance Men first!"
179* In ''Series/TheMuppetShow'', Statler mentions that he was on the ''Titanic'', to which Waldorf remarks that he still has the dress he(Statler) wore to get off.
180* In the three-part finale of ''Series/PowerRangersLostGalaxy'', Terra Ventura is attacked by Trakeena's forces, forcing the crew and the residents to evacuate in the shuttles towards the nearby planet they had reached. Commander Stanton does his duty and stays on the bridge, watching the stars go by. Thankfully, he gets to evacuate in time after everyone else and survives.
181* ''Franchise/StargateVerse'':
182** In ''Series/StargateSG1'', Col. Lionel Pendergast, captain of Earth's first starship ''Prometheus'', stayed at the helm as the ship was blowing up around him in "Ethon" to beam his surviving crew to safety.
183** In ''Series/StargateSG1'', a looming asteroid [[spoiler:that has [[AppliedPhlebotinum naquadah]] in it, meaning it was not naturally there as there is none of that element naturally in the Sol system]] is bearing down on Earth. [[AFatherToHisMen General]] [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Hammond]] sends the entire SGC staff through the [[CoolGate Stargate]] to the Alpha Site, but when queried if he was coming too, he says he "hasn't been relieved of this command".
184** In ''Series/StargateAtlantis'', in "[[Recap/StargateAtlantisS04E20TheLastMan The Last Man]]", an alternate reality Carter rams a Wraith Hiveship with the ''Phoenix'', a much smaller 304 Battlecruiser. The ''Phoenix'' not only destroys the Hiveship, but two more are destroyed when they get caught in the blast of the first. It is unknown whether Carter meant to go down with the ship, or whether she intended to beam down to the planet below but couldn't because the transporters were knocked out.
185*** It may be relevant, however, that yet another alternate reality Carter [[ISurrenderSuckers blew herself and the Jaffa who'd just captured her]] "straight to hell" with a grenade.
186* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
187** ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': {{Subverted|Trope}} in "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E6TheDoomsdayMachine The Doomsday Machine]]". After the ''U.S.S. Constellation'' is put out of action, Commodore Decker evacuates the crew to a ConvenientlyClosePlanet, remaining aboard because TheCaptain is the "last man to leave the ship". Unfortunately, the transporters fail, and he's ForcedToWatch as the eponymous weapon [[NotWorthKilling ignores his spaceship]] and begins devouring the planet her crew had taken refuge on.
188--->'''Decker:''' They called me, they ''begged'' me for help! Four hundred of them! I couldn't... I just couldn't...
189** In the PilotMovie of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS01E01E02Emissary Emmisary]]", a {{flashback}} shows us Lt. Commander Sisko and crew abandoning the ''Saratoga'' during the battle of Wolf 359; Sisko is the last to board an escape shuttle (the captain had been killed; Sisko as first officer was now in command). He had to be dragged aboard, not because he felt he should go down with the ship but because his wife was killed and he was in despair. It happens to Sisko again with the U.S.S. ''Defiant'' as it's being blasted to scrap in "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS07E20TheChangingFaceOfEvil The Changing Face of Evil]]". He's the last one on the bridge after calling for the crew to abandon ship, and probably the last one off before the Dominion finish the job.
190** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': In the climatic scene of the TwoPartEpisode "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS4E8YearOfHell Year of Hell]]", Captain Janeway remains on board ''Voyager'' for a ramming SuicideAttack. Thanks to a temporal ResetButton, she fares better than Decker did. Janeway lampshades the trope in "Dark Frontier" as one of the "three rules of being a Starfleet captain" (the others being [[StiffUpperLip always keep your shirt tucked in]] and [[LeaveNoManBehind never abandon a member of your crew]]).
191** ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'': This happens even in the amoral MirrorUniverse. In "[[Recap/StarTrekEnterpriseS04E18InAMirrorDarkly In a Mirror, Darkly]]", Captain Forrest stays on board I.S.S ''Enterprise'' to give his crew time to escape, in particular his lover Hoshi Sato.
192** ''Series/StarTrekPicard'': Captain Shaw says that when was he just an engineer on the U.S.S. ''Constance'' at Wolf 359, a lieutenant came down to the life deck to choose which 10 (out of 50) crewmen would be able to use the only EscapePod left. Shaw notes that the lieutenant remained behind with the other crew.
193--->'''Shaw:''' She didn't count herself. "Get in," she says, "ThatsAnOrder"
194[[/folder]]
195
196[[folder:Music]]
197* Steeleye Span song - "Let Her Go Down".
198-->While the Captain steered our wounded ship
199-->To the bottom of an angry sea
200-->And with his dying breath we all heard him say
201-->Just the fortunes of a sailor
202* Music/GordonLightfoot's ''The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald''
203** Though in this case it was more due to the ship being sunk in a matter of seconds with no time for anybody to even think of abandoning ship.
204* Music/SteamPoweredGiraffe's ''Captain Albert Alexander'':
205--> Just before he went down he called out to his crew
206--> "It's obvious that my time has come
207--> I'll let this ending ensue
208--> I've led an exciting nautical life it would seem
209--> and there's no better end than a death by the sea"
210* Music/{{Voltaire}}'s ''This Ship's Going Down'' plays with it. The captain fully intends to go down with the ship, and [[TakingYouWithMe intends the rest of the crew to go with him]].
211* Music/PeterSchilling referenced the Titanic in "Terra Titanic".
212-->The rats have the sense to abandon the ship
213-->While the Captain adjusts his tuxedo a bit
214-->With his glass raised up high as the ice water hits
215* Averted in Music/{{Hawkwind}} ''Ejection'', which is an aviation example
216--> When a ship meets with destruction
217--> The captain stays to drown
218--> But no tin contraption
219--> Is going to drag me down
220[[/folder]]
221
222[[folder:Radio]]
223* ''Radio/OurMissBrooks'': In "An American Tragedy", Mr. Conklin, Mr. Boynton and Miss Brooks are stranded on a rowboat in the middle of Crystal Lake. Mr. Conklin proclaims himself captain, however it turns out the rowboat is leaking and starts to sink. Neither Mr. Conklin nor Miss Brooks can swim . . . .
224-->'''Mr. Conklin''' (panicking): [[HypocriticalHumor Well keep your head, Boynton! Don't get panicky! Don't get panicky, boy! You need all your strength, every ounce of it to tow '''me''' ashore]]
225-->'''Miss Brooks''': Tow you ashore? What about me, sir? I can't swim either, and you know the tradition of the sea, the captain goes down with his ship!
226-->'''Mr. Conklin''': Not in this ship!
227** [[spoiler: Fortunately, they had unknowingly drifted near the shore and the water under the boat was only three feet deep]]
228[[/folder]]
229
230[[folder:Video Games]]
231* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII'': [[spoiler: Templar Nicholas Biddle asks to go down with the Randolph after you disable it. Connor accepts, but blows up the magazine to ensure that it actually sinks.]]
232* In ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'', if you purge Vault 101's water chip during "Trouble on the Homefront" and lie to the Overseer that the rebels did it, he stays behind in the vault to die.
233* Occurs in ''VideoGame/FreeSpace'' when the Galatea is destroyed by the Lucifer. The Galatea launches escape pods, which you are charged with defending, but the the mission debriefing states that the Captain stayed behind and went down with his ship.
234* Discussed in ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved''. In the intro, as the [[CoolStarship Pillar of Autumn]] is being shot down over the titular [[RingWorld Halo]], the ship's captain order's the ship's AI to load herself into a data disc and evacuate the ship while he stays on board. She asks him if he's planning on going down with the ship, to which he says he's actually going try to crash land the ship on the Halo ring. He wants her to evacuate because the ship will almost certainly be captured after landing and the AI is far too valuable to fall into enemy hands.
235* ''VideoGame/AHatInTime'': The Captain of the Arctic Cruise attempts to do this after the ship crashes into an iceberg and starts sinking, even trying to refuse rescue as you carry him to safety. [[spoiler:While there are sadder implications considering his mentor did the same and died, this captain is a ''walrus'', and is thus never really in any danger of drowning or hypothermia, which he points out bemusedly after you went through all the trouble]].
236* In ''VideoGame/TheHorrorAtMSAurora'', this is what [[spoiler:Daniel chooses to do if Kirk kept him alive to this point.]]
237* In ''VideoGame/InfiniteSpace'', [[spoiler: Captain Vilchjo Valso]] refuses to abandon his ship when the player character encounters him as part of a Lugovalian fleet in the second half of the game. A number of other characters die when their ships go down, but he's the only one to go deliberately.
238* In ''Videogame/KirbySuperStar'', when the Meta-Knights' airship Halberd starts to go down, Captain Vul decides to AbandonShip while Mace Knight, Axe Knight and a few others choose to stay behind to try to stop Kirby one last time. Meta Knight himself also tries to stop Kirby, although he also escapes later when Kirby does so.
239* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel III'', when [[spoiler:The Courageous explodes thanks to a [[SomebodySetUpUsTheBomb hidden bomb]], all Victor S. Arseid can do is to take off his hat and wish for Aidios to guide Laura]].
240* A few officials in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'' refuse to leave Clock Town and resolve to [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt share its fate]] no matter what. The Mayor remains at his desk, his wife Madame Aroma is found DrowningHerSorrows in the bar, the Bartender refuses to leave his establishment because he's devoted his entire life to it, and the Mailman wants ''desperately'' to leave but refuses because [[UnstoppableMailman tomorrow's delivery is still scheduled]] (Though you can get him permission to flee by asking him to deliver mail to Madame Aroma on Night 3, which he ''eagerly'' takes advantage of).
241* ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'': Shepard is told Joker is ignoring orders to abandon ship; in his case it's less about dying honorably and more about trying to save the ''Normandy''. After Shepard manages to get him into an escape pod, an explosion blasts them away from it. Shepard sends the pod off anyway, saving Joker but sacrificing themself. Shepard didn't ''want'' to go down with the ship, they're just altruistic. Besides, Shepard's [[BackFromTheDead death didn't stick]].
242* In ''VideoGame/MetalWolfChaos'', General Forester goes down with the command ship in Miami when the President sinks it. It's probably a gesture of atonement for going along with the Vice-President's coup.
243* In ''VideoGame/NavalOps: Warship Gunner 2'', recurring antagonist Admiral Amagi goes down with his ship the last time you fight him. [[spoiler: If you fight Captain Tsukuba, he does the same]].
244* In ''VideoGame/{{Poptropica}}'''s SOS Island, the captain decides to go down with the sinking ship. [[spoiler:Fortunately, you manage to convince him to leave at the end, after navigating through the mostly waterlogged ship.]]
245* ''VideoGame/ReturnOfTheObraDinn'': [[spoiler:Captain Robert Witterel seems to be a good example. He is reaching the DespairEventHorizon when he sees the entirety of his crew, including his wife, being wiped out due to the ship being attacked by the [[OurMermaidsAreDifferent mermaids]], the Crab Riders, and the {{kraken|andLeviathan}}, which is too much for him to bear. As a result, he accepts the fact that he will not be leaving the ship alive, and authorizes the surviving female passengers, stewards, and Dr. Henry Evans to leave the ''Obra Dinn'' in the last remaining lifeboat. He also intervenes on their behalf when topman Leonid Volkov attempts to prevent them from doing so, demanding that Volkov "let them go." Afterward, when there are only a few remaining crew members left to attack the Captain for the magical shells, the Captain is forced to kill them all, including his own brother-in-law and First Mate, in self-defense. Afterwards, [[DrivenToSuicide he shoots himself in the chest]], fulfilling his vow to his wife that [[TogetherInDeath he would be with her in the afterlife]].]]
246* Subverted by the Battlecruiser Captain in ''VideoGame/{{StarCraft II}}''. One of his (joke) quotes is "We're going down. Stay with the ship. I'm out!". Not taking heavy damage or close to death. Just as soon as they're hit.
247* A cross between this and TakingYouWithMe in ''VideoGame/{{Starlancer}}'' with the captain of your first carrier evacuating the crew and then proceeding to [[RammingAlwaysWorks ram the ship]] into the Coalition flagship, killing the guy who orchestrated the sneak attack at Fort Kennedy at the beginning of the war. The Coalition admiral realizes too late what his old acquaintance is planning to prevent the collision.
248* ''VideoGame/StarWarsBattlefrontII2017'': Admiral Versio decides to stay on the Eviscerator's deck even as the rest of the crew is evacuating. Iden tries to convince him to get away with her, but to no avail.
249* ''VideoGame/TronTwoPointOh'' played it straight with [[spoiler: I-No, the old Tower Guardian]] who chose to de-rez with the server. However, it's discussed, then averted with [[spoiler: Alan and Jet]] when it comes to them [[spoiler: crashing the F-Con server]].
250* In ''VideoGame/WarOfOmens'', Pietra Siani chooses this over being taken prisoner by Listrata.
251* In the prequel of ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'', ''[[VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2TornaTheGoldenCountry Torna: The Golden Country]]'', the king of Torna chooses to die with Torna as it sinks into the Cloud Sea rather than try to escape.
252* ''VideoGame/{{XenoGears}}'': In the introduction, after the captain of [[MileLongShip The Eldridge]] witnesses the crew and passengers escape shuttles getting [[SinkTheLifeboats shot down]], he takes one last look at a [[FatalFamilyPhoto photo]] of his family before activating the SelfDestructMechanism.
253* In the ''[[Videogame/{{X}} X-Universe]]'' series, Earth's [[EliteArmy AGI Task Force]] fighter pilots will ''never'' [[AbandonShip eject from their ship]] -- likely to prevent the [[HumanityIsAdvanced superior technology]] of the ships from falling in the hands of the [[HumansByAnyOtherName Argon Federation]] or other races. Every other faction fighter has a chance to bail out when they decide that they have no hope of surviving. Because ATF fighters never bail out, [[UnusableEnemyEquipment they are impossible to acquire]] in ''X3: Reunion'' and ''X3: Terran Conflict'', though ''X3: Albion Prelude'' allows players to buy them from shipyards.
254[[/folder]]
255
256[[folder:Web Animation]]
257* ''WebAnimation/DSBTInsaniT'': Duck does this with the toy pirate ship in 'Store Story', intending to [[TakingYouWithMe take Balloon down with him]].
258* ''WebAnimation/SonicZombie'': At the end of "Doom Ship", [[Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog Vector]] decides to sink along with The Ikea to honor Espio and Charmy after they were killed.
259[[/folder]]
260
261[[folder:Web Comics]]
262* ''Webcomic/AwfulHospital'': The native lifeforms of Inert Vessels seem instinctively predisposed not to care about dying out from when their world becomes uninhabitable. With the notable exception of Maya Celia.
263* ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'':
264** Averted when Captain Tagon's response is to request to be teraported off the ''Serial Peacemaker'' when it's facing destruction. When this trope is brought up, he points out the ship isn't his anymore as it's been hijacked by its ArtificialIntelligence. It's not that Tagon isn't brave (he'd already given his life in an alternate history to help his men escape) but he ''is'' a professional mercenary and thus is very pragmatic about such things.
265** After the crew of a destroyed ship wake up in an ArtificialAfterlife the XO is taking roll with the explanation [[https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2018-09-24 "Captains go down with ships. Executive officers muster the dead."]]
266* ''Webcomic/{{Vexxarr}}'' gives an interesting reason for this practice, after the newly appointed captain realizes [[SurroundedByIdiots how badly the crew of his new command sucks]].
267-->'''Captain Bot:''' [[FateWorseThanDeath So, this hell... Nice place]]?\
268'''Vexxarr:''' Unless your crew gets there first.\
269'''Captain Bot:''' And thus the captain goes down with the ship.\
270'''Vexxarr:''' Sometimes it's a race.
271[[/folder]]
272
273[[folder:Western Animation]]
274* A variant in the pilot episode of ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfTheGalaxyRangers''. Eliza orders the escape pod with her children to blast off, stranding her on the captured ship. While her kids make it to safety and the {{Ambadassador}} family friends manage to rescue her husband, this left her to face a FateWorseThanDeath.
275* ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfTheGummiBears'' episode "Gummi's Across the Sea" has Duke Igthorn trying his hand at naval warfare. The ship he has is wrecked by an ancient Gummi sub built in the likeness of a sea serpent, of course. When Dukie prepares to abandon ship, Toadwart reminds him of this trope. True to form, Igthorn immediately names Toadie the captain, and the diminutive ogre briefly enjoys his new status before remembering about the rampaging sub and joins the Duke.
276* The Season 1 finale of ''WesternAnimation/BigHero6TheSeries'' sees Obake go out like this when his plans are undone and his lair starts falling apart [[spoiler: even telling Baymax he's [[ArcWords satisfied with his care]].]] Unlike most examples on this list, there's nothing to do with honor in this scene, just a sort of... sad acceptance.
277* WesternAnimation/BugsBunny short "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutiny_on_the_Bunny Mutiny on the Bunny"]]. Yosemite Sam is the captain of a sailing ship. Bugs tricks him into thinking the ship is sinking and Sam jumps into a lifeboat. Bugs reminds him that "The captain goes down with his ship", so Sam resigns and makes Bugs the captain.
278-->''I'm'' captain an' I say ''YOU'RE'' captain!
279** Afterwards, Bugs pulls him out of the lifeboat again, claiming "women and children first". Sam then disguises himself as an old woman and Bugs tosses an anchor [[PaperThinDisguise dressed in a bonnet and diaper]] over the side, which Sam attempts to catch, with predictable results.
280* ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'': Subverted, barely,in "Wronguay in Ronguay". Fighting over a cannon, Glomgold and El Capitan sink their ancient treasure ship. It seems as if El Capitan goes to the bottom with his ship. However, he resurfaces at the end of the episode holding onto some flotsam.
281* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones'' has the Flintstones and the Rubbles go out on a sea vacation after Barney won a houseboat on a game show expy of ''Series/ThePriceIsRight''. After the ship begins sinking, Wilma and Betty are given the life raft while Fred and Barney, who spent the episode bickering about who should be the captain, begin trying to pass the duty off to the other to avoid going down with it. They spent so much time fighting over it, they both end up going down without realizing it.
282* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' parodies Titanic, using both the "adult men dressing as women and children" (specifically The Professor expressing his relief at not needing to be dressed as a child when they find that there's enough life pods) and [[FakeUltimateHero Zapp Branigan]] making Kif the new captain and promptly running for the life pods. (interestingly, this leads to Kif [[MeetCute meeting Amy for the first time]] and thus their romance over the series).
283* In the ''WesternAnimation/GIJoeARealAmericanHero'' episode, "Sink the Montana!," General Hawk confronts Admiral Lattimer, the captain of the fatally stricken battleship and finds that he wants to go down with the ship. After being unable to persuade him to leave, Hawk overpowers and drags him off the ship before it sinks.
284-->'''Hawk''': My aching back, George! [[DefiedTrope Forget that going down with the ship stuff!]]
285* During the ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'' episode, "The Flood", Principal Wartz states that he would remain and go down with his school. It is unknown if this was sarcasm for forgetting about him, or he really meant it.
286* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheNewAdventuresOfWinnieThePooh'', the characters are playing pirate and their ship springs a leak. Tigger, as the first mate, tells Piglet, who's playing captain, that he must go down with the ship. Piglet then makes Tigger the new captain, who then makes Piglet captain again, and so forth.
287* Parodied in the ''WesternAnimation/PAWPatrol'' episode "Pups Make a Splash"; when the Flounder starts to give way, Cap'n Turbot attempts this...with a duck floatie and a snorkel. And he lives in the end, because the hole in the Flounder is easily fixed.
288* Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/SonicPrime'':
289-->'''Captain Dread''': A good captain goes down with their ship. But a ''great'' captain steals someone else's ship.
290* ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'': Glossaryck chooses to stay in the Realm of Magic as it collapses, even saying he's the captain going down with the ship.
291* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'': In [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS2E20DeathTrap "Death Trap"]], after the Jedi Cruiser ''Endurance'' is sabotaged, Admiral Kilian insists on doing this because it's traditional, telling off Mace Windu when ordered to get in an escape pod. He instead attempts a crash-landing on the nearby planet of Vanqor, [[spoiler:and survives, only to be taken prisoner by bounty hunters.]]
292* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'':
293** {{Inverted}} in [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS2E07StealthStrike "Stealth Strike"]] -- when the Imperial Interdictor and her escort cruisers are destroyed, Admiral Brom Titus is the only confirmed survivor.
294** In [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS4E13FamilyReunionAndFarewell "Family Reunion]] [[Recap/StarWarsRebelsS4E14FamilyReunionAndFarewellPartII -- and Farewell"]], [[spoiler: Governor Pryce]] chooses to remain aboard the flying Imperial dome rather than escape, calmly looking out over the city with a look of pure fury and hatred on her face seconds before the dome explodes.
295* ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'':
296** Owen is Team CIRRRRH's captain for the naval combat challenge in "[[Recap/TotalDramaSwedenSour Sweden Sour]]". When it seems they're going to lose, he gives it a final shot by volunteering himself as cannonball to take down Team Amazon's ship. The carnage is impressive and as Chris approaches the bobbing contestants, he quips that "the captain always goes down with the ship" normally relates to the captain's own ship, but this is beautiful too.
297** In a reference to the musicians on board of the ''UsefulNotes/RMSTitanic'', the butler of the luxury cabin stands outside to play his violin until Wawanakwa Island goes down beneath the waves in "[[Recap/TotalDramaTheFinalWreckening The Final Wreck-ening]]". It's more than possible he survives, but he's not made an appearance since.
298** In "[[Recap/TotalDramaPiratesOfTheCabbagean Pirates of the Cabbagean]], Zee finds himself as the last man standing on the Ferocious Trout, and decides to ram the enemy team's ship. It almost works, but he misses at the last second and crashes into the rocks. Having appointed himself captain, Zee decides to sink along with his ship.
299* In ''WesternAnimation/TransformersRescueBots'', this occurs with Captain Ambrose, who remained on the S.S Phantom Voyager after a lightning strike rendered it simply immobile and caused everyone to evacuate, leaving him to await the towing lines to rescue him. Historically, the towing lines did arrive, only to find out it disappeared.
300[[/folder]]
301
302[[folder:Real Life]]
303* The TropeMaker is thought to be the case of the HMS ''Birkenhead'' in 1852. When the ship ran into a reef off the coast of South Africa, the captain ordered that the women and children go into the lifeboats first. Then, realizing that any extra weight to the lifeboats would swamp and sink them, he ordered all the men to stand at attention as the ship sank. They all did so; while some managed to survive, [[DyingMomentOfAwesome all the senior officers were killed]]. This is considered the first time the protocol "women and children first" was ever initiated, and the soldiers' chivalry was celebrated and dubbed by Creator/RudyardKipling as the "Birkenhead drill".
304* The sinking of the ''UsefulNotes/RMSTitanic'' is probably the most famous sinking of a ship ever, and naturally the captain (and many other important people on the ship) went down with it.
305** Captain Edward J. Smith famously and prominently went down with the ship. However, there are dozens of differing accounts as to ''how'' he died; some survivors claim he shot himself just before the final plunge, while others say he swam after a drowning child and lifted him into a lifeboat but died of exposure before he could be saved himself. The most agreed-upon version, shown in [[Film/Titanic1997 James Cameron's film]], is that he remained on the bridge for the final plunge.
306** Thomas Andrews, the designer of the ''Titanic'', also went down with the ship, after frantic efforts to help others get off. Popular belief suggests he suffered a HeroicBSOD, [[ItsAllMyFault blaming himself]] for the shortage of lifeboats and unable to comprehend that the ship was not as "unsinkable" as advertised. Legend has it that he was last seen in the First Class Smoking Room, his life jacket cast aside, [[ThousandYardStare staring into space]]. This has since been called into question, particularly as the man who saw this left the ship over half an hour before it finally sank. Contemporaneous evidence suggests that Andrews continued assisting with the evacuation until the ship's final moments.
307** Most of the ship's department heads and officers also went down with the ship. Chief Officer Henry Wilde and Second Officer Charles Lightoller both had the ship sink beneath their feet as they tried to load the remaining two collapsible lifeboats; Wilde perished but Lightoller survived, becoming the highest-ranking officer to do so. First Officer William Murdoch's manner of death is unknown, but he is believed to have been crushed by the forward funnel when it collapsed in the final stages of the sinking. Chief Engineer Bell and his entire staff remained below decks to ensure that the ship had power until the last moment. Senior Wireless Operator Jack Phillips and his junior operator Harold Bride continued to send wireless messages up until the wireless failed completely; while Bride barely survived, making his way to the overturned Collapsible B, Phillips escaped the final plunge but didn't survive the night. All five of the ship's postal workers drowned early in the sinking as they attempted to save the hundreds of bags of mail. The chief purser, chief steward, and even the owner of the ship's on-board restaurant all went down with the ship.
308** The ship's orchestra famously stayed on board, playing music to calm the passengers until the very end. The last tune they played is commonly believed to be "Nearer My God to Thee"; although it's disputed that this is actually what they played, it's become ingrained in popular culture as the song to play as a large group of people is facing certain death (which is why CNN famously has a recording of it to play [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt right before the world ends]]).
309** The big aversion was [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Bruce_Ismay J. Bruce Ismay]], the owner and managing director of the White Star Line. He did assist in loading several of the lifeboats, and he did board the last lifeboat to be launched, but Ismay surviving at all was controversial, and he was labeled a DirtyCoward and forced to resign from the company his father had built. A popular myth at the time was that he dressed as a woman in order to escape.
310* The same happened to the ''Titanic'''s sister ship the ''Britannic'', which was sunk by a German mine while serving as a hospital ship during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. Every passenger (who wasn't killed by the initial explosion, or by a gruesome accident involving a lifeboat and one of the propellers) managed to escape the ship. Captain Charles Bartlett, however, made certain that he was the last one off the ship, staying at the bridge until it flooded, waiting for his First Officer to leave the ship first. That said, for all Captain Bartlett's efforts, he was the ''second'' to last one off the ship; there was still a quartermaster stuck below decks gathering supplies who just managed to escape before the final plunge.
311* Commander Alan West, captain of HMS ''Ardent'' in the UsefulNotes/FalkandsWar, was the last survivor to leave the frigate after it was hit by several Argentine aerial bombs and eventually sank. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and it did not harm his career in the slightest. The opposite in fact - he ended up "Admiral The Right Honourable The Lord West of Spithead GCB, DSC, PC", by virtue of ending an Admiral, First Sea Lord (i.e. professional head of the Royal Navy), a life peer and a government minister under UsefulNotes/GordonBrown.
312* Admiral George Tryon went down with HMS ''Victoria'', which sank in one of the worst naval accidents of the 19th Century. The sinking was the result of a dreadful miscalculation by Admiral Tryon, who went down with the ship in a show of apology; his last recorded words were an admission of how he'd screwed everything up and, "[[ItsAllMyFault It's all my fault.]]"
313* The U.S. Navy has notably dispensed with the tradition; although it's still incredibly cowardly for the captain to leave the ship before anyone else, once the ship has been evacuated, it's considered [[HonorBeforeReason pretty stupid]] for the captain not to save himself at that point. Also, the captain is expected to continue leading his crew even after the ship is lost, so he has to stay alive to be able to do that. As they say in the Navy, if a captain goes down with his ship, ''both'' need to be replaced. That said, it's considered a total career killer for a naval captain to have his ship sink under them (whether or not they were responsible, although loss of the ship in combat is excused if the ship put up a fight), so it might be tempting for naval officers to go down with the ship anyway. Or, as Dick Gregory once put it: "When I lost my rifle, the Army charged me $85. That is why in the Navy the Captain goes down with the ship."
314* Zigzagged in case of Imperial Chinese (Qing) Navy during and after the UsefulNotes/FirstSinoJapaneseWar. One of its captains, Deng Shichang, chose to refuse rescue and went down with his sinking cruiser during the Battle of Yalu River. However, the naval brass looked unfavorably at this since they did not only lose a cruiser, but a cruiser plus an experienced captain when they were short on officers trained to command modern ships, and a rule was established that forbade captains from going down with their ships.
315* The tradition is particularly common in Japan, who had picked it up from the British. However, they didn't realize ''why'' the British did it; it's to ensure that everyone gets off the ship. The Japanese instead found that it dovetailed nicely with the ''[[BushidoIndex bushido]]'' code, with the idea that the captain has to "share the ship's fate" matching the idea of a defeated samurai dying an honorable death. This meant that occasionally, a Japanese naval captain might go down with the ship even when he's sure that everyone else is safe. Especially in UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan, the Navy lost quite a few good commanders that way; in particular, Rear Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi of the ''Hiryu'' refused rescue and either [[HonorBeforeReason chained himself to an anchor]] to ensure his death, or remained on the bridge alongisde Captain Tomeo Kaku while conversing about the moon
316-->'''Tamon Yamaguchi:''' Let us enjoy the beauty of the moon.\
317'''Tomeo Kaku:''' How bright it shines.\
318'''Tamon Yamaguchi:''' It must be in its 21st day.
319* The tradition carried over to aviation, often invoked in situations where the plane has to land on water and has basically become a sinking ship anyway:
320** Captain Richard Ogg gets credit for one of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_6 earliest successful ditchings of a passenger aircraft]], in 1956, when he put a DC-6B with two failed engines into the Pacific Ocean. Captain Ogg was the last to get in a lifeboat. [[EverybodyLives All on board survived]] and were rescued by a Coast Guard Vessel.
321** Captain Donald Cameron was the last person to escape the burning DC-9 involved in [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Canada_Flight_797 Air Canada Flight 797]] on 2 June 1983. Having brought the plane, which had caught fire from an unknown cause of ignition in the lavatory, to a safe emergency landing in Cincinnati, Cameron was so exhausted that he was unable to move from his seat. Noticing this, First Officer Claude Ouimet took charge and had firefighters douse the captain with water and foam, shocking him with the energy he needed to clamber out of the cockpit through the windscreen. Seconds after he escaped, the fire flashed over, killing 23 people trapped inside from burns and smoke inhalation.
322** The famous "Miracle on the Hudson" was an event in 2009 when Captain Chesley Sullenberger landed his crippled Airbus A320 on the Hudson River.[[note]] For those not familiar with American geography, this is impressive because the Hudson river is a peculiarly small target. Not only is it much narrower than its volume would suggest, it is also at the bottom of massive limestone cliffs. To land his extra-wide Airbus A320, the Captain had to approach at a steep angle that most commercial pilots would find very difficult. It's also worth noting that several key instruments on the plane were damaged when this landing took place.[[/note]] After deploying the rafts and evacuating the passengers, Captain Sullenberger was the last off the sinking aircraft, having wandered all the way down the aisle and back to check that nobody was left on board -- twice.[[note]]Interestingly, the A320 operating manual stipulates that the captain should be the last person off the aircraft -- but that the first officer should be ''first'' off the aircraft, to assist the evacuation from the outside and coordinate the passengers on the ground (or water, as the case may be). This can be a little alarming for the passengers.[[/note]] Then when the people in his life raft were rescued by a ferry, he was the last person to climb up the ladder. He also refused to leave the Port Authority Ferry Terminal until all of his passengers could be accounted for. His actions would later be depicted in the film ''Film/{{Sully}}''.
323** A variant happened in the lead-up to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Entebbe Entebbe raid in 1976]] (seen in ''Film/TheLastKingOfScotland''). An Air France flight from Israel was hijacked to Uganda by Palestinian militants, and Ugandan dictator UsefulNotes/IdiAmin negotiated with the hijackers and secured the release of all non-Israelis on the aircraft. The French captain -- and the rest of the crew -- refused to go, choosing to remain hostages until all of the passengers were freed (which they were, in the eponymous raid by Israeli forces).
324** Captain Max Pruss of the ''[[UsefulNotes/TheHindenburg Hindenburg]]'' rode the zeppelin until it crashed on the ground. Due to the massive inferno, he escaped as soon as he could but carried out the radioman. He then ran back into the still-burning wreckage to find other survivors until he was restrained by rescuers.
325* This is pretty much expected from the captain of a submarine-- when you're in a metal tube hundreds of feet underwater, escape is usually not an option. Famous examples include Günther Prien of ''U-47'' and John Wesley Harvey of the USS ''Thresher''. The big exception, though, is when the sub surfaces to attack, in which case the captain is usually on the conning tower leading the attack and is thus the only one ''expected'' to be able to survive an accident if one happened. Famous examples of ''this'' include Otto Kretschmer of ''U-99'' and Richard Heatherton O'Kane of the USS ''Tang'', both being their respective nations' leading submarine aces.
326** One interesting case of this is that of Howard Gilmore, skipper of the USS Growler. When a surface attack on a Japanese gunboat went wrong, the conning tower was evacuated, save for Gilmore who was badly wounded. His last order was [[HeroicSacrifice "Take her down!"]]. He was awarded the Medal of Honor.
327* In fact, the tradition is so ingrained that when a captain ''doesn't'' go down with the ship, he's called a DirtyCoward and reviled for his actions. And it also shows that captains who try to escape first tend not to be very competent at other captain things either.
328** Creator/JosephConrad's novel ''Literature/LordJim'' was inspired by the case of the SS ''Jeddah'' in 1880. While carrying 953 passengers, most of them pilgrims on their way to Mecca for the Hajj, the ship encountered a storm and started taking on water quickly. The captain and most of the officers, assuming it would soon sink and probably influenced by racist fear and contempt towards the pilgrims, promptly abandoned ship, despite the passengers' efforts to stop them, and left them all to die. Unfortunately for the officers, the passengers and remaining crew managed to keep the ship afloat until they were discovered by another vessel. Three days after the captain arrived in Aden and told a lurid tale of the ship sinking while panicking, vicious subhumans tried to slaughter all the officers, the ''Jeddah'' itself was towed into Aden, full of a large number of extremely angry pilgrims who were very ready to tell their side of the story.
329** Captain Yiannis Avranas of the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTS_Oceanos MTS Oceanos]]'' was one of the first off the ship when it sank off South Africa in 1991. He later decried the concept that the captain must go down with the ship, stating that "abandon ship is for everybody. If some people want to stay, they can stay." The problem was that Captain Avranas dreadfully mismanaged the sinking, doing little to stop it (sometimes making it worse) and failing to even notify the relevant authorities or the passengers that the ship was sinking. In fact, he was only aboard as long as he was because he'd been previously caught trying to escape multiple times by lifeboat. Instead of leading emergency efforts, the majority of the crew and all of the senior officers -- including Captain Avranas -- abandoned their post to load the two most seaworthy lifeboats with their personal possessions and escape while the passengers were kept ignorant. The ship's ''entertainers'' led by Moss Hills had to run the evacuation after discovering the deception, alongside manning the now-abandoned bridge and calling for help. Their attempts were initially met with incredulity by the authorities, owing to the fact that the radio was being operated by the ship's stage musician instead of an officer. Fortunately, rescue authorities believed them and everyone aboard survived, but they were ''pissed'', and Avranas and his senior crew were later found guilty of negligence by Greek maritime authorities. It's notable that unlike the cowardly crew, the entertainment staff-come-makeshift emergency crew ''did'' wait until passengers were saved to be rescued themselves, and were hailed as heroes by the passengers for it.
330** Captain Francesco Schettino of the ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Concordia_disaster Costa Concordia]]'' became infamous for being one of the first people to abandon ship, disguised as a passenger, and leaving only his junior officers and the passengers to coordinate evacuation efforts. Not only that, but he repeatedly downplayed and in some cases outright lied to the Italian Coast Guard about the true scale of the disaster, needlessly delaying critical emergency rescue services. This drew the incredible ire of local Coast Guard Commander Gregorio De Falco, whose frustrated exhortation "Vada a bordo, [[ForeignCussWord cazzo]]!" (roughly "Get [[PrecisionFStrike the fuck]] on board!") became a global {{meme}} and even found its way onto T-shirts. 33 people died, and Schettino was later found guilty of manslaughter and hazarding a ship,[[note]]Schettino [[CaptainCrash steered the ship too close to an island]] and collided with submerged rocks, which flooded the engineering spaces and knocked out all electricity and propulsion. He claimed that he saved the ship, when it actually drifted unpowered until it ran hard aground on the island. Also a 26-year-old dancer he was having an extramarital affair with was on the bridge at the time and [[DistractedByTheSexy may have diverted his attention]].[[/note]] and sentenced to 16 years imprisonment. The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX_08zcCmx8 full exchange]] between De Falco and Schettino is worth a listen:
331--->'''De Falco:''' Look, Schettino, you may have saved yourself from the sea, but I will really hurt you. I will cause you a boatload of trouble. Get back on board, for fuck's sake!
332** Captain Lee Joon-seok of the South Korean ferry ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_MV_Sewol MV Sewol]]'' abandoned the sinking ship with passengers still aboard and was among the first to be rescued -- in spite of South Korean law ''requiring'' the captain to remain on the ship. He was also spotted on the lifeboat without his pants, and it was suggested that he was attending to "business" in his cabin at the time of the accident, and that the crew was drinking beer on the deck as they tried to resolve the problem. The South Korean public was ''infuriated'', especially as around 300 people died (many of them high school students), and the captain was found guilty of homicide and given a life sentence.
333** Byron Voutsinas was the captain of the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Yarmouth_Castle SS Yarmouth Castle]]'' when the ship caught fire in the wee hours of November 13, 1965. Voutsinas and serveral crew members escaped in one of the first lifeboats to be lowered. The lifeboat got to the ''Bahama Star'', one of the ships that stopped to offer aid to the ''Yarmouth Castle''. Crew members of the ''Bahama Star'' all but demanded that he go back to own ship, which he did. By sunrise, the ship had sunken and claimed 87 lives with Voutsinas surviving. The U. S. Coast Guard was even less pleased; Admiral Louis M. Thayer called his actions "Abandonment of command responsibility".
334* And sometimes a captain will want to do this, but circumstances prevent him from doing it:
335** The HMS ''Guardian'' sank on its maiden voyage on its way to the newly-founded British colony at Botany Bay in Australia. The captain, Lieutenant Edward Riou, evacuated the passengers into lifeboats and stayed on board with a skeleton crew, all of them expecting to die. Remarkably, they decided that they weren't about to go down without a fight, and they frantically began a series of quick repairs and gruelling, non-stop shifts at the pumps. And in an incredible feat of seamanship, Riou managed to guide the crippled ''Guardian'' -- which by some accounts was little more than a gigantic raft by then -- back to Cape Town. In a tragic irony, almost all the passengers Riou saved were never seen again -- only a single lifeboat with fifteen people was found by chance, by a French merchant ship.
336** Captain William Thomas Turner of the RMS ''Lusitania'' tried to go down with the ship when it was torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915. But he was swept from the bridge by a wall of water and found himself clinging to a chair in the open ocean. Fortunately, Captain Turner had the presence of mind to take the ship's nautical chart with him, which provided some key evidence in resolving the disaster.
337** Captain Hans Langsdorff of the German "pocket battleship" ''Admiral Graf Spee'' ordered the ship scuttled when he believed it would be overrun by British forces in 1939; after an engagement with British cruisers, the ship put into the neutral port of Montevideo, Uruguay, and according to UsefulNotes/TheLawsAndCustomsOfWar would have to either leave in 72 hours or be interred. The original plan was to try to take the damaged ship to [[ArgentinaIsNaziland the friendlier port of Buenos Aires]], but the British played a ruse that other heavy ships would be arriving soon, and [[AFatherToHisMen he didn't want his men to die]] [[StupidSacrifice needlessly]]. After preparing the ship for scuttling, he arranged for his crew to be taken into custody, then three days later sent a final message to Berlin [[ItsAllMyFault accepting all responsibility]] and shot himself while lying on the ''Graf Spee's'' battle ensign in a Buenos Aires hotel. In any event, his Nazi superiors could well have [[YouHaveFailedMe killed him as punishment for losing the ship]].
338** The Jämijärvi skydiving disaster in Finland in 2014 involved a plane full of skydivers breaking up in midair, with the starboard wing and its strut folding into the fuselage and blocking the jump door. The only other exit was through the cockpit door. In this case, the captain ''had'' to be the first off the "ship" if anyone else was going to survive.
339** Completely averted in the sinking of MV ''Wilhelm Gustloff''. The ship had four captains: the commander of the ship itself, the commander of the ship's U-boat complement, and two embarked merchant captains. Around 9000 people perished, but all four captains survived.
340** Captain Inman Sealby of the White Star Line's RMS ''Republic'' stayed on the bridge as the ship sank, having seen all of his passengers and crew (save those who died in the initial collision) safely transferred to the ''Baltic'' and the ''Florida'' beforehand. He survived, though, coming to the surface again and promptly being rescued. ''Because'' he stayed on his ship until it sank, nobody blamed him for surviving.
341** When the ocean liner ''Andrea Doria'' collided with another shp and sank in 1956, her captain, Piero Calamai, expressed his intent to do this. But his officers intervened, telling him that if he went down with the ship then so would they, and Calamai relented.
342[[/folder]]

Top