The 5 Least Courageous Things Ever Done in a Crisis

5 "We're Sinking! Quick, Imprison the Passengers!"

With an entire ocean to operate in, you wouldn't think that ships ramming into other ships would be a huge problem, especially in 1848, when there weren't as many people around and boats were carried lazily along by the wind. But the crew of the Ann, who we're thinking weren't very good at being sailors, managed just that. One stormy night, they accidentally rammed their boat into another ship called the Hampton, breaking off a key part of their own boat and crippling it.

With more than 100 passengers stuffed below, the crew quickly discovered that there was a problem with the lifeboats on their doomed ship: Basically, there weren't any. The crew, realizing that the passengers on board were in danger, quickly jumped into action by nailing the hold hatches shut so passengers below deck would stay that way.

That might sound heinous, but understand, there's an explanation. See, if the passengers are inside the ship, their screams are less audible. Who wants to listen to a bunch of whiners complaining about their impending death when you're trying to make your escape to the exact same boat you've just recklessly slammed into?

Right, we didn't mention this part yet. After nailing the Hampton with their bowsprit and then nailing the passengers into their metaphorical coffin, the captain and crew of the Ann split the scene and boarded the Hampton, leaving everyone else on the Ann to fend for themselves. It was really their only option, though. You see, the passengers who had been locked below deck were starting to escape. They were probably pretty mad, too. Getting out of there was really all they could do at that point.

Yes, in case you're wondering, another ship came along and rescued the passengers, who after the fact all seemed awfully happy to testify against the crew that had abandoned them.

4 "It's Only an Earthquake, the Children Can Look After Themselves!"

There's a certain unspoken responsibility that comes with being a teacher. That responsibility, of course, is to make sure that those damn kids don't drain you of any hope of living the life you really wanted to live before you settled for being a teacher. They may have already crushed their parents' dreams, but no way are they taking you down with them.

Fan Meizhong, a high school teacher in China, understands this. When the Sichuan earthquake hit, Fan was in the middle of teaching a class. He immediately did the right thing, telling his students, "Stay calm, it's an earthquake!" His words would have likely had a steadying and calming effect on the class if not for one thing: Fan Meizhong was already running like a track star out of the classroom when he said them, and he wasn't looking back. Respecting authority is an important lesson to impart to your students, but not nearly as important as teaching them that, in a crisis, it's every man for himself.

Battling the rocking ground, Fan soon made it into the middle of the school's soccer field before realizing that he had fucked up terribly. China doesn't exactly encourage their citizens to have kids, but they sure as shit expect you to take care of them if that's your job.

To Fan's credit, at least he was honest when pressed for a comment on the matter. When students asked why he had bailed on them, he simply said, "I have a very strong sense of self-preservation. I have never been a brave man and I'm only really concerned about myself." The honestly is certainly a nice sentiment, but if there's one thing those students didn't need Fan Meizhong to teach them, it's that he's a pussy.

3 "I'm Sure the Plane Will Be Fine, I'm Outta Here."

On July 4, 1989, NATO radar operators spotted a slow-flying Russian fighter plane approaching the border between East and West Germany. Two American fighters based in the Netherlands were launched to see what was up with the intruder and soon reported that it wasn't an intruder at all. It was just a Russian MiG-23, cruising the skies ... without a pilot.

This was a disastrous situation, not because it meant that poltergeists had finally learned how to use advanced weapons, but because it meant that this speeding hunk of metal full of explosive materials was inevitably going to crash land somewhere. And, it was already flying over a populated part of Belgium. So how in the hell did things even get to this point? Because of a pilot who gave up on the mission way too easily.

That pilot was Colonel Nicolai Skuridin, who you wouldn't think would spook easily, considering that he was 1) a fighter pilot and 2) Russian. But shortly after takeoff, Skuridin's sense of fearlessness was tested when he heard a loud bang accompanied by a loss of speed and a sudden lack of jet-type noises coming from the jet fighter he was piloting.

Now, he had a right to be nervous -- he was less than 500 feet above the ground. It might seem counterintuitive, but higher is better. If your fighter plane is going to have this kind of trouble, you're a lot better off having 25,000 feet between you and the ground, since it gives you a lot more time to think through your options. Still, you'd think Skuridin could have stuck out the situation for a few seconds, especially since he had to consider where his roaring machine full of explosives would wind up if he wasn't behind the stick to guide it.

Instead, he ejected, floating safely to the ground. Then he watched as his perfectly fine plane soared off into the distance without him, presumably attempting to complete her mission without that yellow-bellied pilot who had been weighing her down. The noise Skuridin heard was not, in fact, an exploding engine, but an afterburner failing. A startling noise, but in no way fatal to the aircraft. A simple check of the jet's instrument panel would have revealed that the plane was perfectly flyable, and that abandoning it would basically turn it into an unguided missile.

Plans were made to shoot the zombie aircraft down as soon as it reached the English Channel. Shooting it down sooner was out of the question as, like we said, the plane was flying over Belgium and 1) it doesn't help anybody to have the plane falling in multiple burning pieces rather than one big one and 2) the ground there is covered with Belgians, a nationality that's notoriously susceptible to death by falling airplane debris.

Unfortunately, the MiG didn't have enough gas to make it that far and ran out of fuel over Belgium. The resulting crash killed one person on the ground below, though all things considered, it could have been a hell of a lot worse. You might wonder why planes like this don't have some kind of remote self-destruct, but by now you should know enough about human nature to realize that people would be accidentally hitting that shit all the time.

2 "Just Go! The Iceberg Will Save Them."

Remember that James Cameron movie called Titanic where that gigantic ship hits an iceberg and sinks? Wouldn't it be crazy if that happened for real? Well it did! That's right, in 1849, a ship named Hannah was bound for Quebec when she hit an iceberg. But the Hannah's story would make for one stupid-ass movie.

After Hannah's encounter with that iceberg, she was sinking fast, since boats back then were even less able to handle that sort of impact. And, because hanging several smaller boats on the side of a larger boat was a concept that was still a few unspeakable tragedies in the making, there was of course a severe lack of lifeboats. There was one dinghy, though, so at least a few of the passen ... ah, right, not that kind of story. No, instead of sticking around to make sure everyone on board was able to escape safely, the captain and most of the crew hopped into the ship's only means of escape and got gone.

And, unfortunately, unlike the situation with the Ann earlier, there was no other ship that just happened to be floating by at that moment to pick up the passengers. So who saved them? Why, the very enemy that sank them in the first place: the iceberg.

With over 200 passengers on board and the ship sinking into the icy water, the Hannah was on its way to becoming a tragedy when someone had quite possibly the best idea in disaster survival history: They decided to use a gigantic iceberg for a life raft. Seriously, they just crawled over onto the ice. That quick thinking probably saved at least 150 lives. The passengers were able to sit tight until a boat finally did come along.

If you're waiting for the Hollywood feel-good twist ending, here it comes. In a fun bit of poetic justice, the passengers who sought refuge in the warm embrace of that iceberg were actually rescued before the captain and his chickenshit crew. Their dinghy wasn't brought into port until two days after the wreck. It was the exact same port where the other survivors had already been taken. So that twist ending we mentioned? It involves the captain getting a sound ass beating from hundreds of angry passengers.

1 "There's No Room for Passengers on This Lifeboat! We Still Have to Get My Luggage on Here."

In July of 1880, the steamship Jeddah was overcrowded with Muslims making the long pilgrimage to Mecca. And, unlike the two boats mentioned earlier, the Jeddah was a modern, steam-powered ship with four full-sized lifeboats. So that's good news! In case of an emergency, you could sure fit a lot of people into four lifeboats, right?

So, on the third of August, the Jeddah ran into some weather bad enough to knock the ship's boilers loose, which is as big of a problem as it sounds. Besides the big iron cylinders freely rolling around with the tossing ship, it also meant a loss of power, which made steering and moving next to impossible. On top of all that, rough seas were causing water to wash in over the deck. Our science department confirms that this is a leading cause of boat sinkage.

Even with 900 pilgrims bailing water, things were looking bad. The captain had just enough time to prepare the lifeboats for launch. Unfortunately for the pilgrims and their plans to make it to Mecca in the physical sense, "ready for launch" meant that only the crew and their families would be allowed on, along with their guns, food and personal belongings. The next morning, the captain ordered the boats lowered, and the 900 people who didn't have seats on them proceeded to lose their shit.

Only the captain's boat was able to get away; the pilgrims managed to keep two of the other boats from launching and caused the fourth to crash into the water.

Knowing he had a potential PR disaster brewing, the cowardly captain of the Jeddah concocted a story. He assumed that everyone on the boat was now safely dead on the ocean floor, and decided they'd tell whoever rescued them that the Jeddah sank and the pilgrims had become savage killers. And that's exactly the story they gave when they were rescued by the crew of the steamer Scindia a few days later. This meant they had a lot of explaining to do when they pulled into port on the 10th and saw the Jeddah being towed in by a ship called the Antenor.

The crew tried sticking to their pilgrims-as-savages cover story, but the authorities of the time believed the pilgrims, saying of them:

"The Court consider that the action of the pilgrims tends to prove that they never intended to harm the master and his officers had they remained in the Jeddah, that their demeanour is accounted for by the evidence that they had made up their minds that they should not be deserted by the only persons capable of protecting and helping them in the circumstances in which they were placed ..."

Basically, that's 1800s legal speak for "that asshole captain deserved it."

For the exact opposite of these people, check out 5 Shockingly Powerful Kids Who Make You Look Like a Coward and 6 People Who Died In Order To Prove A (Retarded) Point.