Spain train crash driver allegedly boasted on Facebook about speeding before horrific derailment

Fiona Govan, The Telegraph | 13/07/25 | Last Updated: 13/07/26 11:25 AM ET
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Emergency personnel respond to the scene of a train derailment in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, Wednesday, July 24, 2013.

El correo Gallego/Antonio Hernandez/APEmergency personnel respond to the scene of a train derailment in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, Wednesday, July 24, 2013.

Monica Ferreiros, Xoan A. Solera / AFP / Getty ImagesA picture taken on July 24, 2013 shows wounded train driver Francisco Jose Garzon Amo evacuated by two men after the train accident near the city of Santiago de Compostela

One of the train drivers at the centre of Spain’s worst rail disaster for almost 70 years is in police custody after reports suggested he had been travelling at more than twice the speed limit in the moments before the crash.

The driver, named as 52-year-old Francisco Jose Garzon de Amo, was placed under investigation after surviving an accident that killed at least 78 people and injured 130 more, 36 of them seriously.
It emerged that Mr Garzon, a driver with 30 years’ experience, allegedly had boasted previously on his Facebook page about driving trains over the speed limit.

In one posting published by Spanish media, he was alleged to have said: “It would be amazing to go alongside police and overtake them and trigger off the speed camera.” The comments were posted beneath a photograph of a train’s speedometer clocking 200 km/h.

“Ha ha ha, That would be a lovely fine for Renfe (the state-owned train company).”

AP Photo This combo image taken from security camera video shows clockwise from top left a train

derailing in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, on Wednesday July 24, 2013. Spanish investigators tried

to determine Thursday why a passenger train jumped the tracks and sent eight cars crashing into each

other just before arriving in this northwestern shrine city on the eve of a major Christian religious

festival, killing at least 77 people and injuring more than 140.

It would be amazing to go alongside police and overtake them and trigger off the speed camera

Facebook The picture of the speedometer the driver put on his Facebook page, according to Spanish media.

Mr Garzon was one of two drivers said to have been at the controls on Wednesday evening when the express service from Madrid to the port city of Ferrol in north-western Spain derailed close to the city Santiago de Compostela, leaving a scene of devastation and carriages strewn across the line.
The speed limit on that section of track was supposed to be 80km/h.

But in the moments after the crash, one of the drivers made a panicked call to rail officials admitting the train had been travelling at more than double that.

“I was going at 190 km/h! I hope no one died because it will weigh on my conscience,” the train driver is reported to have said. “We’re only human! We’re only human!”

It was not immediately clear which of the two drivers, both of whom escaped with light injuries, made the confession because they did not identify themselves to officials from Renfe, the state-owned railway firm that operated the service.

OSCAR CORRAL/AFP/Getty ImagesA picture taken on July 24, 2013 shows derailed cars at the

site of a train accident near the city of Santiago de Compostela.

The train was reportedly running three minutes late when it careered off the tracks. In Spain passengers are entitled to a reimbursement of 25 per cent of their ticket for delays of more than 20 minutes.

Dramatic CCTV video revealed the moment at 8.40pm on Wednesday evening when the train hurtled round a bend and suddenly jumped the tracks, sending carriages flying through the air and leaving a scene that some witnesses described as being “like Hell.”

The footage showed the train flying off the tracks as it sped round the bend and slamming into a wall, sending carriages into the air and leaving a scene of devastation. Three days of national mourning have been declared in Spain.

“It was like a huge bomb had gone off or an earthquake – the furniture in my house shook,” one resident told local television.

Rescuers fought for hours to release survivors and collect the dead trapped within the twisted wreckage.

Corpses were lined up on the ground next to the wreckage and covered with blankets. Photographs captured shocking scenes of the walking wounded emerging dazed from the accident.

Authorities said that 78 of 218 passengers were confirmed to have died in the accident, including a baby. A further 90 remain in hospital – with 36 people, including four children described as being in a critical condition in intensive care. A Briton and five Americans were reported to be among the wounded.

AFP PHOTO / LA VOZ DE GALICIA / XOAN A. SOLER / MONICA FERREIROSXOAN A. SOLER,MONICA FERREIROS/AFP/Getty ImagesA picture taken on July 24, 2013 shows a fireman carrying an injured young girl following a train accident near the city of Santiago de Compostela. A train hurtled off the tracks on July 24 in northwest Spain killing at least 78 passengers and injuring more than 140, an official said today, the country's deadliest rail disaster in more than 40 years.

Jaime Tizon, a firefighter who was one of the first to arrive at the scene, said: “I’m coming from Hell. I couldn’t tell you if it was the engine on fire or one of the carriages or what.”

The bodies were transferred to a makeshift morgue at a municipal building on the outskirts of the city. Hundreds of relatives gathered there to identify their loved ones.

Some of the bodies were described as “disfigured beyond recognition” and authorities said DNA testing would be required before they could be named.

Investigators hope to determine whether human error or a signalling fault was to blame for the disaster. “The tragedy seems to be linked to excessive speed but we are still waiting on the judicial investigation and the one carried out by a commission from our own ministry,” said Rafael Catala, the transport minister.