I have been curios as to why the nose wheel is so far off the tarmac and gave it some thought. Let me state ahead of time that I am not trying to be a smart ass and point fingers at anyone. I know that the whole thing could be a mechanical fault/computer malfunction and I will read the eventual report with much interest to discover the truth. I have flown the type and have seen the steering "do its own thing" on one occasion. I have also flown with other people that have had the same problem. This was a known problem at my company and I believe that the problem was sorted out.
I was thinking that had I been sitting in that unfortunate seat, the first thing that would probably happen as the nose slipped off the tar would be to increase the steering angle to get the machine back on the tar ASAP (It's human instinct to try and correct the problem first rather than stop and accept the mistake). With the nose at 70/80 degrees and very little/no grip on the dirt my guess is that the a/c continued in a straight line with the nose wheel turned until it dug itself in (or the brakes where applied).
I honestly hope for the crews sake that it was a problem with the aircraft but at the end of the day nobody was hurt and that's what really matters.
W2