As I said last night, my wife was on board, so I can correct some inaccuracies here. I had not previously realised just how easily some posters will jump to inaccurate conclusions until I was in this position to know exactly what actually happened!
The aircraft is G-CIVB and, as far as I can see, all of the pictures above are of the actual aircraft.
The initial smell was noticeable before push-back commenced
Push-back started, but after a few yards it stopped and the aircraft was moved forward again, almost to the jetway, but it was not immediately reconnected (as far as I know)
Worryingly, there was ZERO PA at any time (or it was so quiet as to be inaudible) - the pax were just talking to each other. I thought there were two or three different "Evac" recordings which the crew just press a button to select and for it to play automatically??
Some passengers took it upon themselves to walk forward with young children because of the smell and smoke (even thought the aircraft was moving and no crew told them to sit down)
My wife was in row 36 and there was most certainly NO panic anywhere around her
Pax simply sat and waited for instructions, whilst obviously becoming more and more aware and concerned about the acrid smell - this lasted about 10 minutes
If you know the config, you will know my wife was two rows in front of door 3R (I think door 3 anyway, but it may have been 2R).
The only reason she knew to evac, was because two crew were at this door, they held back the pax until the slides were fully deployed, then started the evac. It took three minutes to clear the aircraft (I don't know how the few WCHR pax were taken off).
There was still NO PA at all, though of course the crew were shouting a bit to keep the pax moving
A significant number of pax grabbed their wheelie bags, etc from the overhead bins and came down the slides with them....!!
The pax were assembled in the open on the ramp, though not a significant distance from the aircraft (about 25 - 30 yards back) and stayed there for about FIFTEEN TO TWENTY MINUTES - long enough for ground staff to locate, carry out and distribute bottles of water for everyone.....
They were standing on the ramp as the fire trucks began to arrive
Eventually, they were ushered back into the terminal (an endless walk), where the inevitable other side of these events began - the endless standing around waiting to hear about bags, carry-on bags, re-booking, avoiding TV cameras in your face, etc.
Very late last night (AZ time) the flight was shown as rescheduled to 16.00 today, but now it is shown as cancelled.
So now we're off to the airport to join a no doubt lengthy queue, locate the checked-in bags (or file a PIR...) and try to get her re-booked - it could be a long and frustrating day and she is not really looking forward to repeating the push-back experience anyway!!