An initial report indicates that the AVE collided with the Iryo at a speed of between 160 and 200 km/h

The Independent Authority for Technical Investigation of Railway, Maritime and Civil Aviation Accidents and Incidents, known as AITAT, released its preliminary findings on Thursday regarding the high-speed train collision at Urda. The report estimates that the impact occurred at a speed between 160 and 200 kilometers per hour. This initial assessment follows the tragic incident that took place on Wednesday morning, resulting in 69 deaths and hundreds of injuries. While the specific velocity data will require further verification using the onboard legal recorder, often described as a black box, the authority has detailed the sequence of mechanical failures and operational decisions that led to the crash. The collision happened at 8:53 a.m. on Wednesday on track two of the Madrid-Seville high-speed line. An Iryo train, consisting of eight vehicles with 147 passengers and five crew members aboard, was stopped at the entrance to Urda station. It was struck by an AVE train, which comprised eight cars carrying 379 passengers and seven crew members. According to the AITAT document, car number eight of the AVE, identified as the leading car based on the train’s numbering system, became embedded in car number one of the Iryo, the trailing car. Both vehicles ended up overturned and rotated at the foot of the track embankment. The force of the impact caused extensive derailment. For the AVE train, all remaining cars derailed completely. Cars numbered one through six stayed on the platform, while car seven fell down the embankment. Car three, the third-to-last car in the direction of travel, was pierced by a fragment of deformed rail track. Regarding the Iryo train, all cars derailed except for the first two, numbers seven and eight. In addition to the trailing car, cars two and three also fell down the embankment. The investigation highlights a degraded operating situation that began earlier in the day. At 8:31 a.m., a failure in the LZB signaling system forced trains to operate under Lateral Signaling Block control, abbreviated as BSL. This change required the Adif Regulation and Control Center and the train drivers to exchange information manually to manage traffic. The AITAT report outlines a chain of faults, instructions, and actions that potentially led to the collision, noting that necessary mitigation barriers failed to function effectively during the critical moments. The technical investigation team was notified of the accident at 9:10 a.m. on Wednesday. Three investigator technicians were mobilized immediately. They departed around 10:20 a.m. and arrived at the scene near 12:15 p.m. Upon arrival, the team inspected the collision point, the infrastructure, the damaged vehicles, and the extent of the damage. They took photographs and interviewed witnesses present at the site. Following this, the group moved to the Urda Local Operational Post to inspect and collect event records from the interlocking system. A second team, comprising the director of railway accident technical investigation and an advisor from the AITAT railway sector, traveled to the Adif High-Speed Regulation and Control Center located in Atocha. There, they examined the position of the circulation manager responsible for the section where the accident occurred. The investigators reviewed the telephone log book, visualized video recordings, and listened to audio recordings of communications made in the minutes prior to the crash. They collected copies of these materials and gathered information from Adif staff present at the center. However, the team has not yet been able to interview the primary personnel involved in the immediate response, as those individuals were not in a condition to undergo interviews. On Thursday, the investigative team participated in the removal of onboard recorders from both trains. This operation was conducted jointly with judicial police and the railway companies. The recovered devices have been placed under the custody of the Civil Guard. In some instances, the severe physical state of the vehicles made access to these recording elements difficult. The AITAT stated that it is currently in the phase of collecting on-site information and compiling documentation and data from various registers. Future phases of the investigation will include additional measures such as formal interviews, inspections of other facilities or rolling stock, and reviews of maintenance records for the infrastructure. The authority emphasized that the current report reflects the information gathered within the first 24 hours of the tragedy. The specific speed of impact remains an estimate pending the analysis of the onboard legal recorder data. The focus now shifts to understanding why safety systems did not prevent the collision despite the degraded signaling conditions that had been in effect for over twenty minutes before the crash.