not daft. just rhetorical to him at least. mechanical problems can happen even if the plane is well maintained. who knows? maybe the pilot flew with extra carbon deposits after doing an idle throttle check? maybe the mixture setting was too lean considering the outside temperature? could be a lot of things... could even be a pilot error and the pilot lived to tell that it was a mechanical problem.
the guys wearing sky blue overalls who do the maintenance for OMNI, PAL, CA, and the private planes (or choppers) chocked in the hangar do their jobs pretty well... if i needed to ask anything mechanical, they know what they're talking about.