The Urda crash in Toledo killed 69 people and injured more than 100 after a Renfe AVE collided with a stationary Iryo train near the entrance to Urda station on the Madrid-Seville high-speed line. The Madrid-Andalusia route quickly became the focus of a political dispute. Alberto Núñez Feijóo says he will continue using AVE trains, while Santiago Abascal accuses him of dismissing passengers’ safety concerns.
Feijóo argued in an interview with Antena 3 that urging people to stay off the trains would damage Spain’s image. In a separate interview with La Sexta, he said he would travel by AVE if he had no alternative. A political leader, he added, should not describe the entire high-speed system as unsafe.
His position clashes with comments by Juan Manuel Moreno and José Luis Martínez-Almeida. Moreno said on 29 October, the day after the crash, that he would not travel on the Madrid-Andalusia route until the entire line had been inspected. He said he felt neither secure nor reassured about using it. Europa Press reported his remarks.
Moreno also urged the Government to limit fares on alternative transport while the rail link between Andalusia and Madrid remained closed. Congress had already voted on the proposal and rejected it. The PP and Vox voted against it, with Junts also backing the rejection.
Two days after the crash, Madrid mayor Martínez-Almeida said he would not board an AVE either. He stressed that passengers needed to feel safe and said the Madrid-Andalusia route had experienced particular problems.
Óscar Puente, who had resigned as transport minister, criticised Moreno’s comments at a Tuesday press conference after the Council of Ministers. He called them deeply irresponsible for a regional president and public representative. The collision followed a failure of the LZB train-protection system across about 63 kilometres of track. The system failure reportedly stopped trains in the affected section automatically. Control then passed to Adif’s Madrid control centre, which authorised several trains, including the Renfe service, to resume while the Iryo train remained ahead on the line. Puente described the authorisation for the Renfe train to proceed as “inexplicable.”
Speaking to Onda Cero, Abascal called Feijóo irresponsible and said the public should not be told to trust a system that, in his view, did not deserve confidence. He invoked former minister Manuel Fraga’s swim at Palomares and said he preferred caution. An earlier RUSSPAIN.COM report covered the separate subject of Iberia’s slow rotation and tectonic movement.
In his Antena 3 interview, Feijóo said he understood the anxiety AVE passengers felt but repeated that he would continue travelling by train. He said he would not contribute to what he described as damage to Spain’s image.
Spain’s Railway Accident Investigation Commission (CIAF) opened a technical inquiry, alongside a judicial investigation led by a judge in Orgaz. Investigators removed the trains’ black boxes on 29 October and transferred them to the Civil Guard for examination. The inquiries are examining why the Renfe train was allowed to continue while the Iryo service remained stopped ahead on the same section. No final determination of responsibility had been made.
