Human error caused a helicopter crash in western Iraq in January that killed 26 Hawai'i Marines and a sailor, according to an investigative report released yesterday on the deadliest crash in more than two years of combat in Iraq.

The crew of the California-based CH-53E Super Stallion became disoriented when weather turned bad and visibility was quickly reduced, and flew the helicopter into the ground, the Los Angeles Times reported. The crash killed the Hawai'i Marines, a Navy corpsman and four crew members based out of California.

The Jan. 26 crash occurred at 1:20 a.m. local time in a sandstorm near Rutbah, a corner of Iraq that touches the Syrian and Jordanian borders.

The crew apparently did not realize the helicopter had begun banking to the left rather than flying straight ahead, the newspaper said, citing the report released by the Marine Corps.

The helicopter was taking troops to western Iraq to help protect polling places during the Iraqi election when it crashed. A second helicopter made the trip safely.

The families of two of the Kane'ohe Bay Marines who died in the crash said yesterday they had not received copies of the 400-page report, which was released out of a staff judge advocate's office in California.

"I would like to have known. I would still like to know, and I would have rather had it before the press," said William Etterling, whose son, Lance Cpl. Jonathan Etterling, 22, was one of the Marines on board.

The Ohio man isn't upset, though, and has nothing bad to say about the Corps. The news that human error was the official cause wasn't a surprise.

"I knew that. I talked to the (Marine) sergeant about that when we were standing by the casket," Etterling said.

Manfred Klein of Michigan, whose son, Lance Cpl. Allan Klein, 34, was killed, also had not seen the report, but said he understands there can be delays in the release of information.

For both families, the acute pain of their loss eight months ago has been dulled only slightly.

"It isn't like it was in the beginning," Klein said, "but there's not been a day that goes by, and possibly not an hour, that I don't think about him."

Etterling said it's been "very difficult."

"We're dealing with it, and we get up every day and we do what we're supposed to do," he said, adding that his community has been very supportive.

The Hawai'i Marines were with the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, which fought house-to-house through Fallujah in November, and lost 46 Marines in total while in Iraq.

Kane'ohe Bay officials yesterday said the regiment had just learned the crash report was out and had not seen it.

The report stated the pilot of the second helicopter, Capt. Norman T. Day, whose responsibility included providing updated weather information for both crews, has been taken off flying status. According to the report, Day did not provide such information to the doomed helicopter crew, the Los Angeles Times said.

In a transcript of an interview with Day, a Marine investigator told him that he might face dereliction of duty charges. But the report as issued does not say whether charges are being brought.

Day told the investigator that the bad weather "definitely snuck up on me."

"I don't think there is anything I could have done differently," Day told the investigator. "Other than turning around at the first sign of a little bit of weather, but I don't think that is an option."

Day said that turning around and returning to base was not possible because both helicopters were low on fuel and were close to the intended destination, Rutbah. To save time, the helicopters had not taken on fuel at a midway stop.

Etterling said he still has questions about the crash that likely won't be answered by the report.

"I was given to understand they had been having problems with sandstorms, and that they were even grounded the first day and didn't leave the base," he said. "The next day, they flew anyway. That's what I was told. Why did they fly if they had already canceled one day?"

Some families wondered if a missile shot down the helicopter. A bright flash was seen by people aboard the accompanying helicopter — which may have been able to fly just outside the sandstorm — when the Super Stallion went down.

Key sections of the 400-page report have been redacted for what authorities say are national security concerns, the Los Angeles Times said. Among the items not publicly disclosed were two recommendations by the investigating officer that were not endorsed by the commanding general of the 3rd Marine Corps Air Wing. It is not clear what those recommendations were.

The flight crew and the helicopter were from Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego, the headquarters of the air wing. All 31 troops died instantly, according to a medical report.

The crash occurred 2.9 seconds after a warning system alerted the crew that it was on a collision course with the ground. It is not unusual for a crew flying in murky weather over terrain without distinguishing features to not realize that their craft is off course, the report said.

A previous investigation into the April 6 crash of a CH-47 Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan, which killed two Schofield Barracks soldiers and 16 others, said that aircraft ran into a severe dust storm, and the pilots became "spatially disoriented." They over-controlled the craft and it crashed, the report said.

The Iraq crash report also suggests that crew members — while qualified in the use of night-vision goggles — may have been overly confident of their ability to see the ground through their goggles.

"This is similar to driving your car too fast at night and not detecting hazards in the road in time to stop," the report said.

"Whether it was pilot error or whether it was something else, it doesn't change anything," Etterling said.

His son, the Marine he calls "just an all-around good kid," is gone.

"He's not a kid, he's a man," he added, "but he'll always be my kid. Every time I see a little shaved-head kid running around, his ears sticking out, little squeaky voice, I think of Jon."