Officials at Spirit AeroSystems disregarded safety concerns raised by former employees and instructed them to undercount defects they found on plane fuselages, a federal lawsuit alleges. The Wichita manufacturing giant sustained its latest round of negative attention when it was identified as the Boeing supplier responsible for producing and installing the door plug that blew off of an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX mid-flight, forcing an emergency landing on Jan. 5. Less than a month before the faulty plug left a gaping hole in the fuselage of the plane, documents were filed in federal court alleging "widespread quality problems at Spirit." The class action lawsuit is brought by Spirit shareholders who say they suffered financial damage when company stock lost value after officials misrepresented company operations and withheld information about quality control issues.