Urda rail crash puts Spanish minister Óscar Puente under pressure ahead of 29 November

The Urda collision

An AVE high-speed train and an Iryo service collided at Urda, in Toledo province, on Wednesday, 28 October 2026. According to the account of the investigation carried in the Spanish press, an Adif control operator told the AVE driver to proceed at normal running speed, which put the train at between 160 and 200 km/h, instead of moving under sight with a 40 km/h cap. Adif is the public infrastructure manager, depends on the Ministry of Transport and has been independent of Renfe since 2005.

The Adamuz accident, about nine months earlier, is the first of the two crashes. A Guardia Civil report says the system recorded the track anomaly but raised no alarm, because it had not been configured to sound one. Critics treat the two crashes as failures in infrastructure management and maintenance, while others place the weight on the operating model.

Death toll and victims

Reports published on 30 October gave 69 dead in the Urda crash. Figures for both crashes together differ by source and by date: one count says more than a hundred, another says at least 120 in nine months, and a third cites 115 deaths in ten months. These totals were measured at different moments and none is a final count. Among the victims is Fátima Báñez, whose death the PP confirmed on Thursday, 29 October, shortly before Alberto Núñez Feijóo visited the command post at Urda. The party opened a condolence book at its national headquarters.

Sánchez keeps Puente in post

Pedro Sánchez decided to keep Óscar Puente as minister after the Adamuz accident and did so again after Urda. The two spoke by phone several times on Wednesday, and on Thursday both attended a Cecopi meeting in Toledo before spending more than two hours together at Adif's control centre. The Moncloa presidency argues that dismissing Puente would mean admitting the government is responsible, which it says is not true, while conceding that keeping him could wear the government down. Puente has not resigned and said:

“I am not thinking about myself. I am thinking about clarifying the causes of the accident.”

Inside the PSOE, several figures say the claim that Puente bears no blame is not credible. Sánchez's latest statement, made without questions, dropped every reference that could call Puente's continuity into question. Some socialists read the government's approach as an attempt to borrow the standing of Castilla-La Mancha president Emiliano García-Page.

Opposition and campaign

Feijóo visited the Urda command post at midday on Thursday and asked for respect and remembrance. The PP suspended its election campaigning and asked for Sánchez to appear urgently before Congress to account for the crash. Feijóo said:

“Political responsibilities cannot be assumed when an investigation ends.”

Feijóo declined to name Puente directly but said what he would do as prime minister: act at the appointment stage, during the minister's tenure, and after the repeated high-speed incidents. The PSOE fears the crash will weigh on its vote on 29 November, and Moncloa is reviewing its strategy with about four weeks left before the election.

The liberalisation debate

The debate over the sector's structure is running alongside the political row. Renfe was split into four commercial companies by a 2012 royal decree-law, following EU rules from 2007 and 2012 that required passenger services to be opened to other operators. Ouigo began service in May 2021, and Iryo followed, so four operators now run on the same high-speed lines. The CNMC regulator reports 44.5 million long-distance high-speed passengers last year, up 12% on the year before, across 3,974 km of line. Commentators disagree on the cause of the crashes, with some blaming the separation of track management from train operation and others pointing to management and maintenance failures.