User blog comment:The Milkman/The Writing of the Ending/@comment-1341687-20120529185853

"The Normandy is seen trying to escape an explosion, but we don't see the rest of the fleet. Since this explosion causes the Normandy to crash, wouldn't it have the same effect on the rest of the fleet? Is it safe to assume then, that the entire fleet we spent the whole game building was just decimated off-screen? "

It did no such thing. The sudden re-integration into normal space as the mass effect envelope collapsed around it is what caused the Normandy to lose control and for the engines to overload. Any ship with using a relay at the time would have experienced the same occurrence, but ships already in normal space would not.