The driver of the train that crashed outside Santiago de Compostela, Garzon Amo, was arrested Friday for “recklessness.” Though police did not elaborate on the charges, it is suspected that the driver of the train, who crashed it while it cruised at 121 mph, much higher than the 50 mph speed limit of the curve he was negotiating, was deliberately speeding. To corroborate that hypothesis, consider his Facebook entry from a year ago in which he showed an odometer of a train at 125 mph and said, “What joy it would be to get level with the police and then go past them making their speed guns go off. Ha ha!”
The true cause of the wreck, which was the worst Spain has seen since 1972, and which has killed 78 passengers, wounding scores of others, won’t be determined until police investigate the train’s black box, which, like an airplane’s black box, records relevant numbers such as how fast the train was going, when the breaks had been applied, and so forth. The box had not been opened by the time it was handed over to the investigating judge, and there has been no indication how long the analysis will take.
Passengers on the train reported feeling alarmed as the train sped. Stephen Ward, an 18-year-old Mormon missionary from Utah, said he looked up at the monitor while journaling and noted the speed. Soon thereafter, “the train lifted up off the track. It was like a roller coaster.” He recalls a backpack falling off the rack above him, the train going off the track, and then it all blanked out.
He woke up dazed as somebody helped him crawl out of the car, and felt he might be dreaming, till he saw blood-covered faces around him.
“Everyone was covered in blood. There was smoke coming up off the train. There was a lot of crying, a lot of screaming. There were plenty of dead bodies. It was quiet gruesome.”