Audios of Spain rail crash| Control center to AVE driver: Resume normal speed

The three key audio recordings of the tragedy — two exchanges between the driver of the Iryo train that was stopped on the tracks and the Atocha rail controller at the control center inside Atocha station in Madrid, and another one between the AVE driver coming up behind and the same controller — clearly show the mistakes that were made ahead of an accident that has killed at least 68 people and injured scores more. It is one of the biggest tragedies in European high-speed rail, and the second one in Spain in a year after 35 years of operation without a single fatal accident.After a computerized safety system failure caused several trains to automatically stop on the tracks, the control center took over to issue instructions. For unknown reasons, a controller ordered the driver of the AVE train, which was stopped 15 miles behind another train operated by the private company Iryo, to resume “la marcha normal,” meaning at normal speed, instead of “marcha a vista,” a much slower pace of 40 km/h (25 mph) that allows drivers to see any objects blocking the tracks in time to brake. The AVE train had reached an estimated speed of 200 km/h (124 mph) by the time it rear-ended the Iryo. The Iryo driver had received the same order to resume normal speed, but seven minutes later she called control center to say she was still stopped because she could not restart the train. Yet nobody warned the AVE driver — not even then, several minutes before the tragedy — that it needed to brake immediately.The key audio between the Atocha control center and the AVE driver, which lasts more than five minutes, shows some confusion at the start, with the controller sounding hesitant, but it ends with a clear order that, according to the government, clearly violates the protocol and is at the root of the accident: resume normal operation when it had not yet been confirmed that the train ahead had moved far enough away — more than 30 kilometers (18 miles)— to avoid a collision.At the end of the conversation the two men draft a record of the orders the driver is receiving, so it is clear they are both understanding the same thing.00:53Iryo driver says train will not startThere lies the first major error, according to the government: ordering the AVE to start moving again at 8.36 am when the control center had not yet verified that the Iryo was moving away, and doing so at regular speed rather than the slower one stipulated by safety protocols.00:53The Iryo driver says the train will not moveSign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition