The Alvia 151 train from Madrid to Ferrol carried 218 people. At 8:41 p.m., driver Francisco José Garzón Amo received a final automated warning about the upcoming curve at Angrois, outside Santiago de Compostela. The train’s data recorder later showed it was traveling at 192 km/h. The speed limit for that section was 80. The locomotive and all thirteen cars left the tracks. Carriages telescoped into each other and split open, scattering luggage and bodies across a wooded embankment.
Investigators from Spain’s Comisión de Investigación de Accidentes Ferroviarios determined the cause was excessive speed. They found no fault with the signaling system or the track. The driver had made a phone call to Renfe’s ticket office 38 seconds before the derailment, though the conversation was about where to position the train at its destination. The judicial inquiry focused on whether a legacy safety system, which would have enforced the speed limit automatically, should have been installed on that line.
The crash exposed a gap in Spain’s otherwise advanced rail network. The line used a modern European Train Control System on high-speed sections, but reverted to a traditional Spanish signaling system, ASFA, on conventional track. ASFA warns drivers but does not automatically brake. In 2015, a court convicted Garzón of 79 counts of negligent homicide, sentencing him to four years in prison. The ruling held him solely responsible, a conclusion that sparked debate about systemic safety oversight.
The derailment prompted a nationwide audit of similar transitional zones. By 2019, Spain’s railway administrator ADIF had installed the continuous speed control system on all lines where high-speed trains operate on conventional track. The curve at Angrois remains, now guarded by a reinforced concrete wall and monitored by full automatic braking.