Reports: Spain train traveling twice the speed limit

Michael Winter and Kim Hjelmgaard | USA TODAY

The train that derailed on a curve Wednesday night in northwestern Spain may have been traveling at more than twice the speed limit, media outlets reported Thursday.

The veteran driver, who was injured, is being formally investigated amid reports that he had bragged on Facebook about routinely speeding. Officials said he did not test positive for alcohol or drugs.

Authorities and rail experts cautioned that speed-control systems might also have failed.

The Associated Press analyzed video of the crash and said the train was going between 89 mph and 119 mph on the stretch of track that has a limit of about 50 mph. The Spanish newspaper El Mundo also reported that the train may have approached speeds of up to 119 mph before it flew off the tracks and smashed into a retaining wall.

The U.S. State Department said that one American was among the 80 who died.

The Galician government said 94 others remained hospitalized, with 31, including four children, in critical condition. Five Americans were among the injured, the State Department said, without releasing details.

The Reuters news agency reported that the driver, Francisco Jose Garzon Amo, is in police custody in the hospital, where he is being treated for unspecified injuries. He took over the controls from another driver about 65 miles before the crash, said the state railway, Renfe.

Garzon, 52, has worked for Renfe for 30 years. He became an assistant driver in 2000 and a fully qualified driver in 2003.

He enjoyed going fast.

The New York Times reported that until it was deleted Thursday morning, Garzon's Facebook page "included a photograph and exchanges that portrayed a taste for speed, and perhaps even recklessness."

A March 2012 photo showed a speedometer topped out at 124 mph. "I'm at the limit and I can't go any faster or they will give me a fine," he wrote.

Responding to a friend's quip about speeding, the Times said, Garzon wrote in all caps: "Imagine what a rush it would be traveling alongside the Civil Guard, and passing them so that their speed traps go off. Hehe, that would be quite a fine for Renfe, hehe."

Garzon had worked the Madrid-to-Ferrol run for more than a year, Renfe said. His express train Wednesday was carrying 218 passengers when it left the tracks at 8:41 p.m. local time (2:41 p.m. ET) about 2.5 miles from the station at Santiago de Compostela. The train carried five crewmembers.

One driver who was trapped radioed the rail station that the train was traveling 120 mph when it entered the bend, sources told the Spanish newspaper El Pais.

"We're only human! We're only human!" the driver reportedly said. "I hope there are no dead, because this will fall on my conscience."

All eight carriages derailed, and four overturned. TV images showed one car torn apart, another on fire and blanket-covered bodies besides the wrecked carriages.

Tragic video: Are trains safe? | USA NOW video Hadley Malcolm hosts USA NOW for July 25, 2013, covering the recent train crash in Spain that killed scores of people.

"A lot of people were squashed on the bottom. We tried to squeeze out of the bottom of the wagons to get out and we realized the train was burning," passenger Ricardo Montesco told radio station Cadena SER. "I was in the second wagon and there was fire. I saw corpses."

The president of the Galicia region, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, described the scene as "Dante-esque."

An 18-year Mormon missionary from Utah told the Associated Press he blacked out after the train lifted in the air like a roller coaster.

Stephen Ward, of Bountiful, found himself caked in blood and heard cries and screams when he came to, thinking it was all a dream. He was discharged Thursday.

Officials canceled festivities planned for Thursday in Santiago de Compostela to celebrate St James, one of Jesus' 12 apostles whose remains are claimed to buried there. Officials said many of the travelers likely were pilgrims headed to the city, about 60 miles south of Ferrol.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy Brey, who was born in Santiago de Compostola, toured the crash scene Thursday alongside rescue workers and visited the injured and their families at a nearby hospital. He declared three days of official mourning.

"For a native of Santiago, like me, this is the saddest day," he said.

King Carlos, the country's head of state, and Queen Sofia also visited the hospital.

It was Spain's deadliest train accident since 1972, when a train collided with a bus in southwest Spain, killing 86 people and injuring 112.

Two weeks ago in France, six people died when several cars of a train packed ahead of the Bastille Day holiday in a station outside Paris. Officials blamed a faulty track.

Contributing: The Associated Press

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The train company said Thursday that there does not appear to have been a technical fault with the train.

The train company said Thursday that there does not appear to have been a technical fault with the train.