This accident in Spain left more than a hundred injured
The signaling systems on the high-speed line between Malaga and Andalusia detected a rupture on the railway the day before the Adamuz accident, in which 46 people died. However, no automatic alert occurred because the system was “not configured to alert due to low reliability.”
According to Guardia Civil investigators, the signaling systems on the Malaga-Andalusia high-speed line detected an electrical change “compatible with a rupture” on January 17th.
The report, received by the Montoro Court and to which the newspaper had access, details that the voltage on the road dropped from around 2 volts to 1.5 volts from 9:46 pm on the 17th, remaining until the accident at around 7:43 pm on January 18th.
Although stored in the Maintenance Assistance System, voltage drops did not trigger automatic alerts and were only analyzed during maintenance or in the event of a reported fault.
Hitachi Rail GTS Spain, responsible for the system, explained that rupture detection only generates an alert when the voltage drops below 0.78 volts, a threshold not reached.
With the new information, the investigators ruled out hypotheses of sabotage, terrorism, negligence or excessive speed, focusing now on the hypothesis that the rail or weld broke as the main cause of the derailment.
More than a hundred passengers were injured in the accident, while the investigation continues to detail failures in the configuration and monitoring of the line.
