Green signal before Urda crash becomes a key investigation question

The Spanish rail inquiry is examining control-center orders and how two trains responded after the main safety system failed.

Channel: RTVE Noticias ·

SpainStory of November 1, 2026Trari Newsroom

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RTVE Noticias: The news division of RTVE, Spain's public broadcaster. 2.7M subscribers and 2B views.

Avanza la investigación del accidente ferroviario | RTVE Noticias

Why did the train approaching from behind encounter a green signal before the collision at Urda? That is one of the unresolved questions highlighted by RTVE Noticias, the news service of Spain's public broadcaster Radiotelevisión Española, in its report on the rail-crash investigation.

Reporter Beatriz Carrasco describes a sequence beginning with the failure of LZB, the railway's main safety system, followed by the use of its ASFA backup. Salvador García-Ayllón, from the civil engineering department at the Polytechnic University of Cartagena, explains the LZB cabling and says a computer fault could have caused the outage.

The report then turns from the equipment to the instructions issued by the operations control center. Investigators are examining why an AVE train was authorized to resume moving while an Iryo train was stopped on the track. Iryo is a private high-speed rail operator in Spain.

Transport Minister Óscar Puente stresses the stopped train's position rather than the reason it had halted: "Lo importante es que estaba parado, fuera por lo que fuera." In English: what matters is that it was stopped, whatever the reason.

García-Ayllón outlines possible differences in the trains' response times and compatibility with LZB. The report presents these as questions under investigation, not an established explanation for the collision. Its description also says train drivers have requested changes to operating protocols.

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