Curly is responsible for the crash, but it's not because he didn't immediately kill Jimmy for hurting Anya.
Unsure if this is a hot take or not, but I searched the sub for discussions about this and came back a tad disappointed.
Curly 100% deserves to share in the blame for the ship crashing, I'm not going to argue that. His response to Anya coming clean about what Jimmy did to her was lackluster, and he does deserve to take responsibility for his shortcomings. However, that was not the act he had to fully answer for.
It's for not fucking tackling Jimmy once he came clean with his plan about crashing the ship.
The Anya and Jimmy situation before their hallway conversation is one that is genuinely complicated. Because of Curly, Jimmy has been thrust into an important position. He's the co-pilot, the second in command. The one who is supposed to take over if Curly gets sick, the one to help him fly the spaceship. Pony express is cheap - if they could get away with a single pilot they likely would have, which does mean that even with the auto-pilot Jimmy is required.
Not to mention they are in the middle of nowhere in space, with the only rooms that have locks being the cockpit, utility and medical. Out of those three only utility can be locked from the outside. Throw Jimmy into a cryo-pod? Not a terrible Idea, but it's almost guaranteed their pay will be docked. Considering that they're emergency use only, and we see that 4000 credits get docked for pilot error caught by autopilot, the wages taken from the crew would likely be much higher.
That's not going to help Anya, who has no savings and is pregnant. That's not going to help Swansea who is nearing retirement age and should be saving up every cent he has (lord knows any Pony Express benefits are likely terrible).
Alright, so what should he do? Give the gun to Anya? Probably, but even if she insists she doesn't plan on harming herself Curly can't exactly take her at her word. Murder-suicide would not be an unexpected outcome here - not when, again, eight months left in space and Anya is actively pregnant with her rapists child. Someone who has never had to do her own psych eval, someone who even before Curly knew about the rape his mind went to Anya wants to kill herself.
Well fuck, no matter what he should have done something though right? Absolutely.
He also only had one day.
A singular day to understand his best friend who he put into a vital role is a rapist, that he forced himself on their coworker and got her pregnant, that his options are limited because no matter what he is putting people at risk either financially or physically. He is in a genuinely complicated, morally grey situation.
All excuses go flying out the window for him the moment Jimmy goes "I wanna crash the ship. Lets just do that haha. I'll go take care of it." That is the moment you say fuck it, fight him and put him into the cryopod because he has actively upgraded his status as a threat. This is the telltale, almost textbook scenario to use the cryopod or the gun. Pony Express cannot be mad at that, because this protects the cargo as well. Y'know, the thing making them money.
Instead Curly lets him.
Even If i am super benevolent to Curly and give him the benefit of doubt - the followup scene does show that it seems as though he thought Jimmy wasn't serious, that it was an overreaction - he left the autopilot key in the cockpit. Your co-pilot talks about wanting to crash the entire ship and you don't immediately take that key and guard it on your body like your life depends on it? You don't bar him from the cockpit through useless tasks as you frantically make up a plan?
I don't hate Curly, I unfortunately see a lot of myself in him especially with the people pleasing attitude and passive nature, but holy shit man. Why is this not at the top of the lists for Curly blame. You cannot excuse this. It is a very frank black and white situation. There is no neutrality he can claim.
Everyone talks about how Curly did wrong by Anya - which he did, make no mistake - but no one talks about the fact that Curly COULD have prevented this just by grabbing the fucking autopilot key. By taking in Jimmys concerning conclusion and doing something about it. He did more than fuck up here, he practically rolled out the red carpet for Jimmy to do this.