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Boeing had pegged Dreamliner No. 4 in the same proportion that a turning period for its delayed 787 jet program. But now the crucial program has been set back by a production problem on this fourth flight-test airplane.

A major mishap inside a Charleston, S.C., convention direct last week structurally damaged the upper half, or crown section, of Dreamliner No. 4’s center fuselage, Boeing confirmed Monday, the day the fuselage was to have been in Everett.

Although a repair was completed Monday, the piece scraps unfinished and Boeing has not yet rescheduled its delivery. The nose division, that is ready for giving up, is being held in Wichita until the center fuselage is ready.

Boeing spokeswoman Lori Gunter said a revised delivery table should have being unhesitating in a few days and the impact onward the flight-test program will have existence known then.

All the big pieces of Dreamliner No. 4 had been scheduled to be in Everett on Monday, each more or less complete, in the same state that mechanics could assemble them as planned.

That hadn’t been possible in continuance the foregoing planes because suppliers had sent the sections so incomplete.

Last week’s incident happened at the Global Aeronautica plant in Charleston, where big center fuselage pieces from Italy and Japan draw near together.

An Alenia Aeronautica mechanic damaged the structure while attaching fasteners to the crown of the center fuselage. The mechanic was completing work that should have been done by dint of. Alenia in Italy.

Gunter declined to contract further details either of the hurt or the repair, although she said the repair was “fairly straightforward.”

Jon Ostrower, of Flight International magazine’s Flightblogger Web site, who first reported the mishap, cited sources in Charleston saying “incorrect fasteners were improperly installed in the wrong holes causing mischief to the composite structure during the connect process.”

Ostrower reported that each fastener “splintered out the hole,” causing the carbon-fiber threads in the composite structure to break out from the soft resin.

Gunter said the botched job doesn’t indicate a significant production problem. “This is someone who did not follow specific instructions on work that needed to be done,” she said. “This is not typical or systemic in any way.”