Rail investigators flagged human-error risk after a 2024 Cuenca incident before Urda crash

What happened near Urda

On Wednesday, 28 October, two trains collided at Urda in Toledo province, on the high-speed Madrid-Seville line. Transport ministry data cited in coverage says the LZB system, which supervises train movement from the cab and can order braking, failed at about 8:30 and halted six trains. When LZB goes down, control shifts to the Atocha control centre run by Adif, and signalling falls back to trackside signals backed by ASFA. Early information says an operator at Atocha told an AVE driver to resume moving without realising that an Iryo train was still stopped ahead and a red signal was in place. At least 69 people have died according to the newest report, while an earlier report gave a toll of 68.

The 2024 Cuenca incident

On 25 June 2024, an AVE travelling from Murcia to Madrid overran a red-and-blue signal at Cuenca-Fernando Zóbel station after a stop there, moving at 11 km/h. The train was running under ERTMS Level 1, whose TRIP mode braked it automatically, and nobody was hurt. The driver then radioed the Albacete regulation centre, where the traffic manager authorised the train to proceed after checking visually that the track section ahead was clear. Minutes later, a review of the video recording showed the signal had been overrun, and the train was stopped and ordered back to platform 5. The CIAF named two causal factors: the driver's misreading of the signal and the Albacete authorisation to continue.

What the CIAF warned

The commission concluded that the Cuenca authorisation had rested on one visual check by the traffic manager, and that this check was the only effective barrier against a collision. It recommended technical measures, including a move to ERTMS Level 2, a review of signal ergonomics and revised protocols after a TRIP braking event. The report put the risk in these terms:

“This barrier is susceptible to failure, since it depends entirely on the human factor, which highlights the need to implement technical mitigating measures.”

The sources disagree on the report's date: El Periódico gives 26 June 2025, while other outlets describe it as a 2024 report. El Periódico also reports that the CIAF was succeeded in July 2026 by the Independent Accident Investigation Authority (AITAT), after a reform driven by the transport ministry of Óscar Puente.

Open questions

Investigators have not yet established the cause of the Urda collision. The preliminary information points to a fault in the LZB system, which El País links to a computer failure, and the operation then depended on human decisions from the Atocha centre. El País also reports that ERTMS is replacing LZB on the Madrid-Seville line, the same kind of system that was in place at Cuenca in 2024. The timeline below sets out the key dates in the Cuenca warning and the Urda collision.

The ministry's figures are preliminary, and the toll of at least 69 may still change as the investigation continues.