Originally Posted by
shamrock7seal
Rideforever & Concours777: engineers are carried for a number of reasons the main one being in case of a lack of engineering support at the outstation in this case a small regional airport which probably didn't have a line maintenance agreement in place. This is very common especially for rapidly growing LCC's that haven't had time to get it done. Not a sign that they wanted to troubleshoot something in the air at all.
Lion Air did indeed state that the presence of the flying spanner on the flight was not connected with the recurring technical issues (though they didn't admit at the time that there had in fact been a sequence of events).
That statement may or may not be true.
The CVR, if and when it's found, may shed some light on what role, if any, the engineer had on the flight.