The Mandalorian season 2, episode 3 saw an Imperial Captain played by Bosch star Titus Welliver ready to take drastic action to deny the Mandalorians his ship - by crashing it instead of allowing it to be captured. Set five years after the events of Return of the Jedi, The Mandalorian takes place in a galaxy where the Empire is in full retreat. In fact, officially the Empire and the New Republic have signed a treaty called the Galactic Concordance, but it's becoming clear there are still Imperial holdouts.
One such holdout appears to have settled in the area around Luke Skywalker's homeworld, Tatooine. Already there's been mention of an Imperial fleet gathering somewhere in the depths of space, and Moff Gideon - the mysterious Imperial who has taken possession of the fabled Mandalorian Darksaber - appears to the one in charge. The New Republic Defense Fleet has increased patrols in this sector, having received reports of increased Imperial activity. All signs are that this part of the galaxy is about to explode into war once again.
The Mandalorians are set to be in the thick of it, with Bo-Katan leading raids on Imperial vessels. In The Mandalorian season 2, episode 3, she went so far as to attempt to capture a freighter, and Moff Gideon commanded the captain to go to drastic lengths to deny her this prize. Captain Welliver shot the rest of his crew before trying to crash his ship. He then committed suicide rather than be captured and interrogated.
It's important to understand that, by now, the Empire has been reduced to its most loyal, amoral, and extreme leaders. It is one thing to rule through the threat of fire, but it is another thing to act in such a way that you earn that fear, and the destruction of Alderaan shocked people across the galaxy. After the events of Return of the Jedi, Palpatine's Sentinel droids issued orders to initiate a scorched-earth policy called Operation Cinder, resulting in countless acts of attempted genocide. Operation Cinder forced every remaining Imperial to decide whether to obey the Emperor no matter what, even when fighting a loosing battle. As a Captain in the Empire, Titus Welliver will have actively participated in Operation Cinder, committing unknown atrocities. He was a fanatic.
In strategic terms, Welliver's actions make a disturbing amount of sense. His primary goal is to get a shipment of arms to the Empire; failing that, he falls to a secondary goal, to deny these resources to the Empire's enemies at any cost. Even better, by Moff Gideon's calculation, is the fact crashing the ship will kill the pirates on board as well, thus removing a thorn in the Empire's hide. It's a cold strategy, one that doesn't care at all for the value of life, but it's exactly what you'd expect from a man who has remained loyal to the Empire even through Operation Cinder. In fact, it's actually a logical extension of the same scorched-earth strategy, and it's been used during conflicts in the real world to ensure enemy forces didn't capture additional ships and war materiel. The approach is associated particularly with German and Japanese forces during the Second World War; given George Lucas based the Empire in part on Nazis, it's quite appropriate to see it crop up in Star Wars like this.