Questions about Spain train crash go beyond driver

The driver is the focus of Spain's high-speed passenger train crash investigation. But debate is intensifying about other factors, including lack of fail-safe mechanisms.

|
Eloy Alonso/Reuters
A flag flies at half-mast in memory of train crash victims at the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela in Spain, where dozens died last week when a high-speed train derailed.

Spanish officials are blaming speeding for the derailment of a high-speed passenger train that killed scores of people this week, and more specifically the driver, who has been taken into police custody "in connection with recklessness."

"The driver is under custody because what doubt is there that there are rational indications to think that he may be held accountable eventually for what happened," said Saturday Spanish Intetior Minister Jorge Fernández-Díaz in Santiago.

Despite the anger being directed at the driver and the train's apparently undisputable speeding, however, there are growing questions about the absence of fail-safe mechanisms that could have prevented the accident.

The driver of the 10-car train, of which eight cars held passengers, reportedly told an emergency phone line that he was traveling at more than twice the speed when he reached a sharp curve just after a tunnel, only minutes away from Santiago de Compostela, in the northwestern Spanish region of Galicia.

"I had to go 80 kilometers (50 m.p.h.) per hour and I'm going 90," still speaking in the present tense. "I screwed up. I hope there are no dead. Poor passengers," he is quoted as saying. Of the more than 220 people on board, at least 78 died and 30 remain in critical condition.

The driver, Francisco Jose Garzon Amo, has been released from the hospital, but remains under police custody. A judge investigating the accident has already incriminated him, but the driver has not been charged, and the judge denied Friday the he had ordered his arrest. 

The driver refused to render his testimony to police, a right under Spanish law, and will wait for the courtroom, where he is expected to make an appearance early next week. But the court has also made it clear that it's prioritizing identifying the bodies, not yet the cause of accident. 

The train's equivalent of a black box has not been opened for clues yet, and the investigation into other possible technical malfunctions, like faulty brakes, is only beginning.

Security footage

The shocking security camera footage of the accident certainly appears to show a speeding train. The train's maker, Talgo, which has internal speeding controls, also said it was travelling at "extreme velocity."

On Friday, the heads of the two state railway companies, Renfe, which is in charge of trains and Adif, which is in charge of rail infrastructure, strongly suggested the accident was a human error, the conductor's. It was a rare and apparently premature accusation, considering the court investigation has not formally started.

Newspapers headlines – and most of the public – largely blame the driver. But he had a spotless reputation and work history, and technical questions are increasingly being raised by experts, rail unions, and to a lesser extent by media about other contributing factors, all of which will be analyzed by the court. 

At the heart of the technical debate also increasingly being waged through media outlets and social networks is why other fail-safe mechanisms designed to prevent such tragedies, regardless of recklessness, were not in place.

No automatic braking system

The final destination of the train was Ferrol, on the Atlantic coast. After a long stretch at which the trains travels at more than 200km/h (136 m.p.h.) and after a tunnel, the high-speed tracks that were recently laid revert to the much older system, a short distance before the deadly curve.

The high-speed tracks use an automatic braking system to stop trains even if conductors don't manually do it, but the old tracks – where the derailment occurred – have a different system that does not automatically stop trains, unless they are speeding at more than 200 km/h. 

Fellow drivers of the same route also defended the driver of the crashed train, saying in media interviews that the particular transition segment is dangerous and not properly signaled, while highlighting the driver's flawless track record and reputation for responsibility and professionalism.

The driver has been working for 30 years for Renfe, the national rail operator, and since 2000 as a conductor. He wasn't intoxicated at the time of the accident, authorities said.

He had driven the curve 60 times before the accident, Renfe said, and the train and tracks had routinely passed safety checks. 

There is also an uncomfortable precedent. In 2006, 43 people died in a subway accident in Valencia and a court concluded that it was the driver's fault for speeding, based on information provided by subway and government officials. The driver also died, so the case ended. 

But prosecutors in May requested that the case be reopened after public pressure revealed evidence that was withheld by authorities, including the fact that the emergency braking mechanism was not installed where the accident took place.

A parallel theory of government negligence  and coverup is being raised, linking the two accidents.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Questions about Spain train crash go beyond driver
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2013/0727/Questions-about-Spain-train-crash-go-beyond-driver
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe