WASHINGTON — In an effort to defuse the controversy over the brief capture of 10 Navy sailors last week, the Defense Department on Monday released a timeline of events surrounding the seizure, but the account was spare on new details and left several fundamental questions unanswered.

The timeline did not explain why the crews of two patrol boats — which the military said were supposed to remain in international waterways — deviated from their course and strayed into Iranian territorial waters. Nor did it explain why they allowed Iranian sailors to board their boats, or why the boats’ communications equipment apparently failed, cutting them off from their superiors.

Senior Pentagon officials said the timeline contained limited new information because the Navy was reviewing the actions of the sailors, who could face stiff judicial and administrative punishment for the episode. The Navy does not want to prejudice the outcome of that inquiry by offering too many details, the officials said.

The capture was highly embarrassing for the Navy. It came just hours before President Obama’s last State of the Union address and while American and Iranian diplomats were in the final stages of negotiating a prisoner swap. The Iranian government was also taking its last measures to comply with the nuclear deal, which allowed economic sanctions against the country to be lifted on Saturday.