About those ten United States Navy sailors that were captured by Iran in the Persian Gulf right after the new year …

Initially, the Pentagon reported that a mechanical error was responsible for leading the naval operators astray on their riverine command boats. Then, they changed their story and said it was due to a “navigation error”.

Guess what? Both of these reasons are about to be broadcast as true, according to details from a pending Navy report leaked to CNN.

Here’s how they put it:

According to the report, the sailors originally set out from Kuwait for Bahrain but quickly — and unknowingly — went off course and headed almost directly for Iran’s Farsi Island in the middle of the Persian Gulf.

The report found that several factors may have contributed to the failure:

  • The sailors had never made the trip before.
  • They had been up most of the night before conducting maintenance on one of the boats that had broken down.
  • They had to “cannibalize” parts from a third boat in order to have two working vessels.
  • They then experienced problems with their satellite communications gear.

All of this led them to leaving port later than planned.

Additionally, the leak claims that the sailors didn’t do a “standard operational briefing” before they took off. In other words, they went without mapping out a plan.

It also reports that the crew didn’t even know where Farsi Island was and even missed a “check-in phone call with their command center”.

Once they went off course, they were met by Iranian military boats and personnel, and detained.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5VVXfJFj3c

Once taken in by the Middle Eastern country’s forces, this happened. Among other things.

More from CNN:

Then all the sailors were blindfolded except for the two U.S. Navy coxswains who were in charge of sailing the boats into a small lagoon at Farsi Island while guns were still held against them.

Once on Farsi, the sailors were blindfolded and then moved around the building in which they were held. Each was questioned separately and asked about their missions, their boats and what they are doing at sea.

Eventually, all 10 were taken into a large room also seen in a video, and given food. At this point they were told by the Iranians to “act happy” for the camera, the U.S. official said.

The sailors said they argued back and told the Iranians they wouldn’t do it. At that point the lieutenant, the senior U.S. person there, said he was sorry for the error in order to defuse the situation, the official said.

The sailors were released the next day by the IRGC after the unit that was holding them was told to release them by senior Iranians, the U.S. official said.

Stay tuned to the blog for more on the forthcoming report.