Spanish investigators focus on Madrid rail controllers over the 'inexplicable' order that sent a high-speed train into a stationary one
Wrecked carriages thrown down an embankment near Urda, Toledo, after controllers directed a Renfe train to resume at full speed into a stationary Iryo service carrying 147 passengers.Smoke rises from derailed carriages between Los Yébenes and Urda after the crash, which emergency crews feared could surpass the Adamuz disaster, where 46 people died in January.Mangled wreckage on its side after two high-speed trains collided in Toledo province, Spain, killing at least 39 people and leaving survivors scrambling clear while passengers remained trapped.The derailed train near Urda, Toledo, where a computer failure prompted controllers to direct a Renfe service to resume at full speed — a decision Spain's Transport Minister Óscar Puente said left operators with "more…
At least 68 people were killed and more than 100 injured when a Renfe high-speed train travelling at up to 200 km/h rear-ended a stationary Iryo service on the Madrid-Seville line near Toledo on Wednesday morning. Spain's transport minister Óscar Puente said a computer malfunction knocked out the automatic safety system across a 63 km stretch of track, but that the crash followed an order from the central command centre in Madrid to resume traffic without speed restrictions. Police and the Railway Accident Investigation Commission are now questioning the control centre operator who managed that section of line at the time. Spain has declared three days of national mourning, with 15 people still in critical condition and emergency teams still searching for victims.
Puente insisted the train engineers bore no blame, saying the command centre's decision to send the Renfe service into an active stop signal was 'clearly wrong'.
Critics have called for transport minister Puente to resign, noting this is Spain's second deadly rail crash within a year.
Around 544 passengers were on board both trains; survivor Jesús Jerónimo, 54, described the collision's impact as 'brutal', saying people were thrown from their seats.
