Originally Posted by
sSquares
On Nov 1st 2018 the airline confirmed one of their maintenance engineers was on board of the aircraft during the accident flight. This was an "anticipatory measure" in the event of technical problems with the new aircraft. As such, "the presence of the technician has nothing to do with the condition of the aircraft before taking off."
The 737 Max in question had been in service for 11 weeks. Another 10 of the type are flying with the airline, with the first having been delivered in the middle of last year. So hardly a "new aircraft" or type.
Yes, it's not unknown for airlines to carry a flying spanner on a route where there's no engineering support at the far end, but on a route that has 6 daily rotations it's hard to believe that's the reason either..