Renfe AVE hits stopped Iryo train at Urda, leaving 69 dead in Spain's rail crash

The collision near Urda

Two high-speed trains collided on Wednesday, 28 October, near Urda in Toledo province. According to a preliminary report from AITAT, the independent authority that investigates rail and other transport accidents, a Renfe AVE 2080 struck the rear of an Iryo 6076 that had stopped in front of the entrance signal at Urda station. The report puts the impact speed at between 160 and 200 km/h and says the front carriage of the AVE became lodged in the rear carriage of the Iryo. After the impact, the whole Renfe train derailed: six carriages stayed on the track platform while a seventh fell down the embankment.

The Iryo carried 147 passengers and five crew, while the AVE carried 389 passengers and seven crew, according to the same report.

Iryo 6076147

Renfe AVE 2080389

Iryo 6076

147 passengers

Renfe AVE 2080

389 passengers

Data from the article text

The Castilla-La Mancha high court (TSJ) said that by 30 October the Toledo forensic institute had received all 69 bodies and completed 48 autopsies. The provisional death toll remained at 69 that morning. Outlets report different injury totals, from more than 80 to more than 100 and more than 180 people hurt.

The ministry's account and the control centre

The Ministry of Transport first attributed the crash to a fault in the LZB safety system on the Madrid-Andalusia high-speed line, which had halted several trains. According to its account, Adif's control centre then authorised trains to resume normal running without applying the 40 km/h limit that the protocol requires after such failures. Puente initially called the decisions inexplicable and said the control centre had time to notice the error and did not resolve it, according to ABC. He later said he had only described how events unfolded and did not want to blame anyone. Audio recordings of control-centre communications, released on Thursday, 29 October, show the controller told the AVE to continue at normal speed before it had been confirmed that the Iryo was at a safe distance. The Guardia Civil is analysing the black boxes of both trains, and the AITAT says all hypotheses remain open until its final report.

Political and union reaction

Ester Muñoz, the PP spokesperson in Congress, said Puente should resign and that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez should be the one to give explanations. In an interview on RNE she called the demand for resignation obvious and said the minister should not reach Tuesday in office. She also pointed to the Adamuz accident in January, saying it was incomprehensible that the same minister remained in post.

“If he does not resign, he should be dismissed.”

Muñoz added that the government had not accepted responsibility for two rail disasters.

“We have had two fatal accidents in less than nine months on the same line.”

The CGT rail federation, SFF-CGT, rejected singling out staff at the Atocha Regulation and Control Centre after Puente's comments. In a statement it said the following.

“An accident of this gravity can hardly be explained by analysing only the last link in a chain.”

The union criticised the circulation of what it called partial and self-interested audio of control staff, and asked Adif to protect its workers and trace the source of the leaks. It also recalled that it had asked for custody and traceability measures for control records after the Adamuz accident and had received no reply. In May it had proposed changing Royal Decree 929/2020 to set limits on continuous traffic-control work. On Thursday, commentator Juan del Val, speaking on El Hormiguero, called Puente immoral for blaming a worker.

Families and rescue operations

Renfe opened the helpline 900101020 and Iryo the line 900001403 for affected passengers, and both companies are handling ticket changes and cancellations. Two days after the crash, LaSexta reported that families of 67 people still missing were waiting for news. One passenger's cousin had not been seen since the crash, and the mother of a 32-year-old man travelling from Madrid to Jaén in coach 7 said she had been told he was taken out alive but does not know where he is. Relatives have gone to points set up by the Guardia Civil to give DNA samples to help identify the victims.