LaHood decided to trust his gut instead. “Michael, it’s my call, I’m doing it,” he told him. He ordered the FAA to ground the Dreamliner, the first time the agency had done so for a Boeing jetliner and its only grounding of any model since the McDonnell Douglas DC-10, when a federal judge ordered it after the Chicago crash in 1979. LaHood called McNerney, and the CEO started raising objections. “I know you’re not happy,” LaHood replied in his prairie-flat midwestern accent. “And you know what, I’m not happy about the fact that there’s smoke and fire in these planes!” He said the Dreamliners
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