Rail traffic controllers in Spain gave a green light to a train traveling at approximately 100 mph toward a stationary train, resulting in a crash that killed at least 69 people. Transport Minister Óscar Puente stated that controllers at an operations center in Madrid had full visibility of the situation for 17 minutes but failed to intervene. A judge is investigating several "inexplicable" errors, including instructing the moving train to proceed at high speed despite a technical issue.
The incident is the deadliest train crash in Spain in over a decade. The crash occurred after an aging automatic safety system, LZB, shut down, forcing manual control. While Puente defended the system's reliability, he acknowledged it had experienced roughly 170 outages this year, often due to vandalism or construction.
The government is preparing immediate measures to implement advanced technology and prevent future failures. Under emergency protocols, the trailing train should not have moved until the forward train departed, and speeds should have been limited to 25 mph. Instead, controllers authorized the train to resume normal speeds of up to 124 mph.
The forward train, operated by Iryo, was unable to restart, and the control center took no action after being notified.
Source: New York Times Top Stories · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing