One question - if a plane makes an emergency landing, isn't opening the doors potentially dangerous because the pressure in the cabin is greater than that outside? I seem to remember a few years ago an FA, I believe it was on AA, tragically died because s/he opened the door after an emergency landing and was blown outside the plane onto the runway because the cabin had not depressurized yet.

Edited to add - I found this link:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...16/ai_90503141

And it looks like this was a problem specific to the A300 aircraft.