Sixteen American military personnel have been punished for their roles in the attack, but none of them will face criminal charges because a military investigation determined the attack to be unintentional. “This was an extraordinarily intense combat situation,” the top officer of the military’s Central Command, Gen. Joseph L. Votel, told reporters.

The disciplinary measures were unlikely to satisfy Doctors Without Borders and other rights groups that have said the attack may have constituted a war crime and that have called for an independent criminal investigation. The punishments were “administrative actions” that could include suspension or removal from command.

Here are findings of the investigation:

The crew of the AC-130 gunship set out without a normal mission brief or a list of no-strike targets.

The aircraft took off in haste because of an unrelated emergency and then was diverted to strike a building that Americans believed had been taken over by the Taliban. As a result, the crew was not fully briefed and did not have a list of no-strike targets, including the hospital, which was nearby.

Kunduz Afghanistan The hospital was hit in an airstrike on Oct. 3 Hospital hit in airstrike Kunduz 500 feet Kunduz Afghanistan Kunduz The hospital was hit in an airstrike on Oct. 3 Kunduz Afghanistan Kunduz The hospital was hit in an airstrike on Oct. 3 Hospital hit in airstrike 500 feet The New York Times | Satellite image by DigitalGlobe via Bing Maps

Communications systems on the aircraft stopped working.

Key electronic systems failed during the flight, preventing the crew from sending video or sending and receiving electronic messages. The systems included a video feed that would normally have sent pictures to higher-level commanders in real time.

The crew could not locate the intended target.

As the gunship approached Kunduz, insurgents fired a missile at it, forcing it outside its normal flight path. As a result, the aircraft targeting system became misaligned, and coordinates that should have identified the target building instead marked an empty field.

Location of American commander on the ground Position first indicated by aircraft sensor Intended target 1,080 feet 1,320 feet 1,450 feet Hospital attacked Location of American commander on the ground Position first indicated by aircraft sensor Intended target 1,080 feet 1,320 feet 1,450 feet Hospital attacked Position first indicated by aircraft sensor Intended target 1,080 feet 1,320 feet 1,450 feet Hospital attacked The New York Times | Satellite image by DigitalGlobe via Bing Maps

Crew members picked the hospital based on a visual description.

Without exact coordinates, the crew mistakenly focused on the hospital, because it was near the empty field and roughly matched a visual description of the intended target. Even after the targeting system was fixed and correctly aligned with the intended target, the crew continued to focus on the hospital.

Hospital attacked Intended target Hospital attacked Intended target The New York Times | Satellite images by DigitalGlobe via Bing Maps

Senior officials approved the strike despite having the hospital coordinates.

One minute before firing, crew members told officials at Bagram Airfield headquarters that they intended to strike a target and gave them the coordinates. The officials had a no-strike list that included the hospital and its coordinates, but they did not connect the information to realize that the crew was preparing to hit the hospital.

The strike continued after Doctors Without Borders notified the American military.

Eleven minutes into the airstrike, Doctors Without Borders succeeded in reaching several United States government officials to alert them of the attack. But the strike was not called off until 19 minutes later, the military report said.

The top officer of the military’s Central Command, General Votel, said Friday that the notification had to pass through “a series of layers” to get to military officials on the ground and that when it did reach the Special Forces commander, he did not immediately stop the airstrike. “The ground force commander was not tracking a medical facility, so when he first heard it, it didn’t register,” Mr. Votel said.

The timeline given by American officials does not agree with accounts by Doctors Without Borders and other witnesses, who said the strike went on for more than an hour.

After the announcement, Médecins Sans Frontières, the French name of Doctors Without Borders, reiterated its calls for an independent investigation, saying in a statement “that it cannot be satisfied solely with a military investigation.”