Warp core breach
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In the Star Trek fictional universe, a warp core breach is a serious malfunction that can occur on starships, resulting in loss of the ship, and possibly loss of life.
A warp core breach occurs when containment is lost between matter and antimatter, allowing the two to combine in an uncontrolled manner. This produces enough energy to destroy the starship.
If this happens, the warp core could be ejected from the ship, or if possible, a saucer separation maneuver could be performed (if this feature was present on that particular starship). This would result in the probability of loss of life diminishing.
There have been many examples of warp core destabilisations. In most cases warp cores that have lost containment result in the core breaching and the vessel being destroyed. Howeer there are examples of warp core restabilisation. During a warp core breach, if time is willing, the crew of a starship can in some cases restabilise the warp core by means of restabilising the reaction between mattwer and anti-matter. There is also at least one example of a warp core restabilising by itself, as seen in the Star Trek: Voyager episode 'day of honour.'
A warp core breach was seen in Star Trek: Generations.