GM’s Suspended Engineers Made Fateful Calls on Cobalt

General Motors Co. has placed two engineers, Ray DeGiorgio and Gary Altman, on paid leave for their roles in events leading to the recall of 2.59 million small cars with potentially defective ignition switches tied to at least 13 deaths, said two people familiar with the matter.

Altman led the engineering team working on the Chevrolet Cobalt, one of the affected cars, and rejected a fix because it was too expensive and would take too long, documents indicate. DeGiorgio led the team that designed the faulty switch. In 2006, after car columnists and customers complained about the switch, DeGiorgio quietly greenlighted an improvement that others at GM didn’t learn about for more than six years. Last year, he denied under oath that he knew the part had been changed.