destroying a child component (blueprint)

Hi, I have a blueprint (Spaceship) which contains 3 child actors (Turrets - blueprints). When the main ship is destroyed, the turrets need to die with the ship. I have tried destroying the component and i get a crash. If i deactivate it nothing happens. When i cast to the turret blueprint and set a bool (active) which i have set up in each turret it wont cast. I cant even turn the turrets invisible.

Is there some way to remove/destroy or deactivate these child components?

If you destroy the parent actor than all of the child components will get destroyed with it too. If you want to just destroy the child then you need to do that before you destroy the parent, because after the parent is destroyed there should be no child component to cast to anyway