Verdict reached on Angrois derailment

Eleven years and two days after the derailment on 24 July 2013 of a Class 730 Alvia express on the curve at Angrois, on the approach to Santiago de Compostela station, the enquiry court reached its final verdict on 26 July 2024.

The judge, Elena Fernández Currás, concluded that both the driver of the train, Francisco Garzón, and the former Head of Operating Safety of Adif, Andrés Cortabitarte, were to blame for the derailment, which resulted in 79 deaths and 143 injuries. Both have been sentenced to 30 months in prison, and prevented from resuming their professional activities for a further 54 months. The Renfe and Adif insurers, QBE And Allianz Global, must now pay out over 25 million EUR to those affected in the accident.

In the enquiry documentation, which runs to over 500 pages, it was noted that there were several causes of the accident. One was the mobile phone call by the guard on board the train to the driver, which lasted 100 seconds, and served to disorientate him. The other was the lack of wayside ATP to automatically reduce the speed of the train, in spite of the fact that this was legally necessary in situations where line speed was abruptly lowered to 80 km/h.

In autumn 2011 Cortabitarte had ignored this 'black spot' in the ATP system covering the line when he had submitted documentation to the Ministry for Public Works (then Fomento) stating that the line was ready to be put into use. This was after the contractors had already identified the curve at Angrois as a possible derailment risk, and had recommended the coverage of that stretch of line using ERTMS as an overlay to ASFA - there were no transponders which would have automatically checked the speed of the train.

The result was that controlling train speed (reducing from a long stretch at 200 km/h plus) was left entirely in the hands of the driver. Adif did not undertake any risk assessment, in spite of the fact that Cortabitarte's task was to 'guarantee the safe operation of the new railway'.

As regards Garzón's actions, these were regarded as 'seriously negligent'. The phone call from the guard was to request a change of track at Puentedume station, between A Coruña and Ferrol, where a group of passengers was to leave the train. This could, of course, have been done at Santiago station. Garzón was distracted to the extent that he lost his bearings, and did not see any of the wayside vertical signalling that warned him of the approach to the curve at Angrois, which the train entered at 191 km/h. This was in spite of the fact that he had adequate route knoweledge.

Following the accident, Adif identified over 300 locations on the rail network where there were 'significant changes in permitted line speed', since in the past it had never been thought that human error could have caused such a derailment. The infrastructure manager admitted that it would have to take precautions in the future.

The judge saw it as 'incomprehensible' that a high speed line, equipped with ERTMS, one of the safest train protection systems yet devised, should not have it at a location where it was so obviously required.