An unconfirmed account has it that a person in the cockpit fell onto the pedestal; in a 16 November press release, Etihad maintained that none of its staff were involved in the accident. The investigation is centered around the nose wheel steering, which was reportedly unlocked in order for the airplane to move out of the area after the tests had been conducted. It was apparently locked again for an unknown reason, putting the aircraft in front of the wall with engines running. The accident site makes sense if someone forgot to re-engage the nose wheel steering before heading to the exit taxiway. Then, the person lunging for the switch (to help the apparent lack of directional control) fell across the throttles – this at least is a reasonable scenario.
The pedestal story is back again
This is like reading a mystery novel where the stars are supposedly killed off only to reappear again in later chapters in new sub-plots.