The Spanish Government identifies human error as the main hypothesis behind the collision of two high-speed trains this Wednesday in Urda (Toledo), an accident that has resulted in between 30 and 50 fatalities, according to various reports published by Spanish media, and dozens of injuries.
The collision occurred at 8:54 AM at kilometer point 119.700 on the Madrid-Seville line, when an AVE de Renfe with 397 passengers on board collided from behind with a stopped Iryo train on the tracks, which had 147 travelers. The impact caused four carriages to derail, two of which fell down an embankment.
The casualty figures varied throughout the morning. The president of Castilla-La Mancha, Emiliano García-Page, confirmed at least 30 deaths—24 in the AVE and six in the Iryo—and 50 serious injuries. The region's Emergency Services raised the toll to 39 deceased, and sources from Civil Protection placed it at least at 46. Subsequent reports, still unconfirmed, indicated more than 50 dead and over 179 injured.
Everything began at 8:30, when a malfunction disabled the main signaling system LZB, which continuously monitors the speed and distance between trains and can command automatic braking. Train operations then switched to the alternative system BSL (Lateral Signal Blocking), which detects occupied segments but does not provide the same continuous supervision.
Iryo sources clarified that their train detected the failure and stopped at 8:38 in front of a blank signal, immediately alerting the Adif Regulation and Control Center in Atocha. "At 8:48, and for reasons that are unknown, service 6076 was struck from behind by Renfe's train 103," they stated.
Government sources consulted by elDiario.es indicate that an operator at the Adif control center allegedly mistakenly authorized the AVE to proceed despite the Iryo occupying the track and the signal being red, thus allowing the train driver to pass that indication.
According to a report by El Mundo, the Iryo had notified Adif of its situation 10 minutes before the impact, but the AVE, instead of slowing down, collided with the stopped train at over 100 kilometers per hour. "The impact between the leading locomotive of the AVE and the rear carriage of the stopped Iryo must have been brutal," stated railroad accident investigation technicians quoted by the newspaper.
José María Goicolea, an executive member of the Association of Civil Engineers, explained to RTVE that "the only possible interpretation is that the LZB was malfunctioning, that ASFA was in operation, and that a human error occurred," although he warned that "these are just speculations." Sources within the railway sector consulted by El Independiente were more direct: "For the second train to have collided with the first, the only explanation is that the signal was green."
On his part, Óscar Carballo, general secretary of the College of Public Works Engineers, urged caution in statements to RNE: "If it's a collision, it's something unusual because a train is not supposed to collide with another. The signaling and the way train operations are organized make it impossible for that to happen."
The president Pedro Sánchez suspended his agenda and that of the ministers, while the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, arrived at the Adif control center in Atocha. Adif halted all services on the Madrid-Andalusia line, and Renfe offered free changes and cancellations.
The Urda disaster is the second major accident in Spain's high-speed rail network in less than a year. The previous one occurred in January 2026 in Adamuz (Córdoba), also involving an Iryo train, and resulted in 46 fatalities, including a Cuban citizen. The Madrid-Sevilla line, inaugurated in 1992 with the LZB system, is set to migrate to the more modern European ERTMS system, but that update has not yet been completed.
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