If you sell or transfer craft, all crew and equipment onboard is sold/transfered; same with sacking soldiers (you lose the armor they were wearing).
Ah so i suppose this is game mechanic.
So how Niculinux managed to do so? Truth be told, I always empty crafts before selling, just to be on the safe side.
Actually, simply sold the owned and bought the new, some days after game was started, no rocket science
Edit:
Well, his post is questionable at best... I mean, if the crew was really lost, he wouldn't have any "remainings" at all, since everybody starts in the craft.
If anyone can reproduce and give me a save, we can talk about it, otherwise I think he just sold the crew and equipment too by accident.
nothing went by accident, just like i wrote above, sold the craft with the initial setup provided by the game. Sry, no save game file avaiable from me