As the aircraft was not fully loaded with passengers - I think I've read there were 50 plus spare seats - I'm curious as to why the standby passengers were presumably only allowed on because of the "no shows".
I haven't seen any mention of the actual number of no shows but that maybe because I missed a now deleted post. It may be possible that it was a large party travelling together, perhaps a school trip, which for some reason was delayed en route. I haven't seen the total number of standby passengers mentioned anywhere either so maybe all of them were boarded not just five of them.