EU investigating fraud in Spain's deadly crash rail line

Updated / Friday, 6 Nov 2026 11:21

Getty

The European Union is investigating the possible misuse of EU funds earmarked for the renovation of a Spanish railway line where a train crash killed 69 people, prosecutors said today.

The October crash on the Madrid-Seville high-speed line was one of the worst railway disasters in Europe this century, overshadowing Spain's upcoming general election this month.

A similar investigation into the same stretch of track had already been opened in March in the wake of another incident that claimed 46 lives in the southern province of Andalusia, European prosecutors said.

"Today, the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) in Madrid (Spain) is conducting investigative measures at the Administrator of Railway Infrastructure (ADIF), the State Railway Safety Agency (AESF) and the Court of Auditors in Spain," a statement from the EPPO said.

"This comes after the opening of an investigation into possible fraud affecting EU funds allocated to the renovation and upgrading of safety, signalling and communications systems on the Madrid-Seville high-speed railway line," the EPPO added.

"This exceptional confirmation comes following high public interest and no further details will be made public at this stage."

The Spanish police were supporting the investigation, the statement said.

The crash happened on 28 October when a train operated by the state-owned Renfe ploughed into the back of a stationary train belonging to the private Spanish company Iryo outside the village of Urda, around 130kms (80 miles) south of Madrid.

At 8.30am on the morning of the crash, the security system on a stretch of 63km stopped working due to a computer malfunction, causing all trains on that stretch to stop.

At that point the Iryo train was stopped near the town of Urda, while the Renfe train was 25km behind.

But a few minutes later the central command told the Renfe train to start running again without any speed restrictions, and it ended up crashing into the stationary Iryo train at 8.53am.

Spain's transport minister Oscar Puente said that the train should never have been told to start moving again since there was still a "stop signal" active on that line, and that if it had, at least it should have been told to go at reduced speed.