My friend was on the plane with his family. From a passengers perspective it sounded terrifying. Whether or not the pilots did the right thing I’m far from qualified to say but he said the cabin crew abandoned ship first leaving the passengers to work it out for themselves which sounds disgraceful. He says an off duty BA cabin crew member travelling with their family took over the evacuation in the absence of the crew who got off first(not the flight deck crew, just the cabin crew).
I appreciate the plane was full of smoke and things happened fast but according to him this is 100% what happened, if so this sounds completely unacceptable.
I'm sure it was terrifying, but with respect to your friend I don't believe that's what happened - perhaps from his perspective it appeared that way in the, presumably, apparently rather chaotic scenes of the evacuation.
Oh, and I hope he didn't take his bags with him.