the seats in front of them. Some passengers had difficulty unfastening their seatbelts because they were unfamiliar with the mechanism (which differs from the type used in car seatbelts). The purser went to announce instructions to the passengers but the public address system handset had been torn off. He then tried to open the left-side forward door, which was blocked by trees. The door opened partway, and the emergency escape slide began inflating while it was stuck partly inside the fuselage. The purser, a passenger, and a flight attendant (a guest from another airline) managed to push the door fully open. In the process, the purser and the passenger were thrown out of the fuselage with the slide landing on top of them. The flight attendant then began evacuating the passengers but they soon began to pile up at the bottom of the slide as their route was blocked by trees and branches. The egress of the passengers was temporarily halted while the purser and another flight attendant began clearing the branches. When the evacuation continued, the flight attendant stayed at the door, helping passengers, until she began suffering from smoke inhalation. By this time, the fire had entered the right side of the fuselage through the damaged floor section between seat rows 10 and 15. A passenger tried to open the left-side overwing exit. It would not open, which was fortunate as there was by that time a fire on the left wing. The panicking passengers now began pushing toward the front of the cabin. A flight attendant standing in the centre of the cabin at seat 12D was pushed into the aisle by a severely burnt passenger from 12F. Then, as she was helping another passenger whose clothes were on fire, she was carried forward by the surge of people rushing to escape. After the rush of people had left and the interior was fast becoming toxic, she stood at the front door and called back into the cabin. There was no reply and the thick black smoke made a visual check impossible, so she exited the fuselage. The evacuation from the rear door had been fast and smooth thanks to the instructions from the flight attendants at the rear of the aircraft. The medical team from the airshow arrived and began examining the passengers. Ten minutes after the crash, the first of the fire trucks arrived. But