You must remember with the locked door procedure, the cabin is very divorced from the flight deck, and the pilots really have no idea what is going on. In the MAN incident, the pilots told me (and this was when flight deck doors were unlocked) that they abandoned takeoff following a loud bang they put down to a tyre bursting (it was the engine disintegrating explosively). They came to a halt just off the runway and started doing their procedures. At that stage they were waiting for a report from the steward and waiting for emergency services. They had no idea that the whole of the rear of the aeroplane was a furnace (engine burst wing fuel tank, cascade of burning fuel falling to ground, and
flames burning directly onto rear fuselage), people were dying in dozens and then the doors were being popped open and the evacuation happened under them- those that could. It was all over in 2 minutes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British...urs_Flight_28M
It's very likely the pilots were not aware of the speed or severity of the situation considering the extremely rapid sequence of events. I would say there was magnificent reaction by the cabin crew. The flight crew were probably frantically shutting down all systems without realising how bad it was behind them.