This is the best reason to have strong shields, or at least decent ones, on an explorer ship. Most of the time, you lose something like 2% - 5% jump range, but it's better to limp away from a crash than it is to stare at the rebuy screen. Most of the time, the difference would only be a couple of jumps anyway.
For exobiology, the Imperial Courier can easily have a shield strong enough that the only way to be destroyed in a crash is to boost head on into the ground, with strong thrusters. (I tried. My standard procedure for a new exploration build involves crash testing.)
One time, my joystick failed just as I was flying at low altitude, and of course it didn't fail by disconnecting, but roll and pitch axes (perhaps yaw too) maxed out instead, and of course in such a direction that I went spinning into the ground. Or what happened to another explorer: they were leaving an NSP, and decided to boost away before jumping... but then a tiny mollusc decided to fly in front of their ship just then. They are invincible, we aren't. Cardboard build, rebuy screen.
So, accidents happen.
A couple of tips to help mitigate them: first, before crashing, put four pips to SYS, that'll strengthen your shield significantly. Better yet, always fly with four pips, because you might not have enough time for pip management.
Second, for shields, it's usually the best to put some E-rated shield boosters on your ship and engineer them with the Heavy Duty recipe, plus the Super Capacitors experimental if you have the mats. These have the best ratio between mass and shield strength added.
