The causes of the train accident which involved two high-speed trains on the Malaga-Madrid route in southern Spain, causing at least 39 deaths, remain unclear. According to the Spanish Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, it was an “extremely strange” episode, given that part of the straight section of track had been renewed last May, while the derailed Iryo train had undergone its last inspection just 4 days ago.
Preliminary hypotheses are focusing mainly on possible failures of the railway bogies or the infrastructure itself, as stated by the president of Renfe (the state railway company) Álvaro Fernández Heredia. For the moment, in fact, the hypotheses of human error and high speed seem unlikely, given that the trains were traveling well below the 250 km/h limit established for that route.
For Spain, this is the worst train accident since 2013, when a derailed train near Santiago de Compostela caused the death of 80 people. Now it will be the authorities’ task to ascertain the actual causes of the disaster, once the rescue operations are concluded: Fernández Heredia underlined that it could take a month to be able to reconstruct the dynamics with certainty and ascertain the causes of the disaster.
The dynamics of the accident at Adamuz: the facts known at the moment
Train 6189 of the Iryo company, a Frecciarossa 1000 model, was traveling on the Malaga-Madrid line at a speed of 205 km/h when, at Adamuz, the eighth and last carriage of the train derailed, taking with it the two previous carriages, which ended up on the left track where they met the first two carriages of a train of the Alvia company, which was traveling in the opposite direction at 210 km/h. The two carriages of the Alvia train that were hit ended up on an embankment about 4 meters high.
In an interview with Cadena SER, Renfe president Álvaro Fernández Heredia said the time interval from derailment to impact would be about 20 seconds. In short, although the safety systems automatically braked the derailed train, there would not have been enough time to avoid the impact with the other train arriving from the opposite direction.
Given the dynamics of the accident, Heredia discarded the hypothesis of human error, decreeing that a derailment due to high speed was unlikely: the railway section was a straight line and the train was traveling at a speed of around 205 km/h, in an area where the maximum limit was 250 km/h.
What may have caused the accident: Infrastructure concerns
Preliminary hypotheses, therefore, are focusing above all on possible failures of the infrastructure or trains of the Iryo company, of which Ferrovie dello Stato is the majority shareholder (51%). Specifically, the railway section connecting Andalusia to Madrid has been much discussed in recent months, after the Spanish train drivers’ union (SEMAF) had requested – and subsequently obtained – the lowering of the speed limit from 300 km/h to 250 km/h “due to the effects which, according to their complaint, are caused by the accumulation of a series of imperfections on the tracks”.
Specifically, SEMAF had already reported in August 2025 strong vibrations due to more intense rail traffic on the line, vibrations that “could be the basis of events such as the breaking of train bogies”, the union wrote at the time.
Among other things, the last track renewal operation dates back to May 2025 (for a total of 700 million euros invested), even though the conditions of the railway section “should be optimal”, as reported by the president of Renfe. The Frecciarossa 1000, however, was inspected on 15 January 2026, just 4 days ago.
According to what was reported by El Pais, in 2025 ADIF (the state company that manages the infrastructure) had found a series of technical malfunctions on the line, right at Adamuz, such as problems with the signaling system and with the infrastructure, in the latter case reported on 26 October 2025. On 23 December 2025, however, the company had reported a fault at the switches between Adamuz and Corbova.
At the same time, according to some testimonies from passengers on board, two jolts were felt before the accident, one milder and the second stronger: this is compatible with the hypothesis – yet to be confirmed – that the accident may have been caused by a problem with the railway infrastructure, which would have prevented the railway trolley from resting correctly on the tracks, ending up derailing the tail end of the train, exactly as happened.
In his interview, President Heredia also spoke of a missing component of the Iryo train’s bogie, which however may have been knocked off during the impact.
In any case, to have certainties it will be necessary to wait for the investigations to be carried out by the authorities, who are currently continuing slowly to give priority to the rescue operations of the people still trapped under the sheets of the train.
