yeah, you should just create the explosion in a seperate function

Code:
function explosion(){
   //do special stuff here
}

function player_crash(){
   explosion();
}
function ai_crash(){
   explosion();
}


you could also pass parameters to the function to let it know where it occurs, or who to etc...

Code:
function explosion(VECTOR* temp_vec, ANGLE* temp_ang){
   //do explosion
}
function player_crash(){
   explosion(my.x, my.pan);
}


this really should be void function as nothing is being returned,
Code:
void explosion(){


hope this helps