The ship's crew have a protocol of helping passengers first and foremost. The senior crew were well-provided for safety-wise, given Voronin, clinically obese and with advanced health problems, and his family, together with a former sea captain aged circa 74, and his wife, all managed to get on the nearby lifeboats safely and survive. They were in the exact same accommodation quarters as the ship's senior crew, the Chief Engineer, the Ship's Doctor, etcetera, who, after their relatives were informed they had survived (as one would expect in their privileged location and knowledge of ship safety) were later told they were missing and their bodies not recovered. Yet the unfit, the frail and the elderly in the neighbouring cabins somehow had no problem. So, yes, the engineers as I recall were busily pumping out water from the engine room, not racing to help out the bridge, who had their own duties to do.