Possible cheat - crawler force drop?

Was just running a small group spice run. 2 carriers and crawlers. We were engaged by some enemy players in thopters. No issue, that's part of the game, but as the carriers picked up the crawlers and headed back to the PvE line, all of a sudden, both crawlers get dropped into the sand at the same time!

Luckily both were able to pick up and run before anything major happened (we were already right on the PvE line) but it just seems really strange. Both carrier pilots swear they never pressed anything, and one said he was even locked into perma-overheat.

Anyone know of any shenanigans that might cause this? I was driving one of the crawlers, so I didn't experience weirdness first hand.