Self-destruct

[5] Generally the scuttling of a ship uses strategically-placed explosive charges by a demolition crew and/or the deliberate cutting open of the hull rather than an in-built self-destruct system.

Launch vehicles self-destruct when they go errant, to prevent the endangerment of nearby ground personnel, spectators, buildings and infrastructure.

This usually detonates explosives mounted on the rocket, which sever its propellant tanks or solid fuel casing, leading to a controlled breakup of the vehicle.

The oil spill that followed the Deepwater Horizon explosion is an example where the self-destruct system failed to operate correctly (due to the pipe buckling and moving outside of the blind shear ram's reach).

Similarly, some online social media platforms are equipped with a Stories feature, where posted content is automatically erased after a predetermined time, commonly 24 hours.

In many such stories, these mechanisms not only obliterate the object protected by the device, but cause massive destruction in a large surrounding area.

Passwords in 1970s and 1980s movies are often clearly insecure for their purposes as self-destruct triggers, considering accounts with even low-level security—let alone the high-security measures which would come for a self-destruct mechanism—in modern times generally have far more complex password requirements (the writers of the era not anticipating the issues soon to be raised by the easy affordability of fast computer hardware for conducting brute-force attacks).