Overview
- Guardia Civil investigators identify a break in the rail or in a weld as the main hypothesis and rule out sabotage or driver error in the collision that killed 46 people.
- The inspection video from the Lomas del Partidor tunnel shows fresh marks on sleepers and rails and loose metal plates, and Adif staff collected these pieces and stored them at the Hornachuelos maintenance base.
- The court is examining Adif’s removal of rail “coupons” (cut-out track sections used for lab tests) without prior judicial authorization, and an accuser has asked the judge to probe what the Guardia Civil knew about those pieces.
- Record-keeping on the welds shows inconsistencies, including signatures that are not handwritten or electronic and version dates that come after the listed controls.
- Documents also raise doubts about the welding kit used, with labels marked 350HT where Adif rules call for R260 for joints mixing new and used rail, and Adif later filed a correction while raw ultrasonic test data are missing and further expert tests are still being arranged.