Train Driver In Spain Sentenced To 2.5 Years In Prison For The Worst Train Accident Case Eleven Years Ago

JAKARTA - A train driver from Spain and former head of traffic safety at the national rail infrastructure operator ADIF were sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for a train accident that killed 79 people 11 years ago.

In Spain's worst train crash in decades, the high-speed Alvia 04155 train with eight carriages turned out of track at a sharp bend near the northwestern city of Santiago de Compostela, hitting a concrete wall and burning.

A total of 143 other people were injured in the 2013 accident.

As reported by Reuters on Friday, July 26, presiding judge Elena Fernandez Curras said two elements caused the train to slip, namely the driver's attention was disrupted when he received the call, and there was no safety system if the driver did not comply with the speed limit.

The defendants and insurance companies ADIF and Renfe were sentenced to pay compensation of 25 million euros (27.14 million US dollars) to the victims in a civil trial.

After the accident, ADIF identified more than 300 points in the Spanish railway network requiring rapidity changes.

Judicial investigations into the accident were complicated and took years, while the trial lasted 10 months. Only two of the more than 20 people investigated were finally tried.

Fernandez revised the death toll to 79 out of 80 as he considered one of the passengers, who died weeks after the accident, died of serious illness, and was not injured.

Relatives will still receive compensation because he was injured in the accident.