Train operator probed after deadly Spain crash, US woman among victims

Investigators into the worst rail disaster in Spain in 40 years obtained the train's black box Friday, hoping it will reveal why it was traveling twice the normal speed when it ran off the rails Wednesday in a northwestern section of the country, crashing and killing 78 people, including a U.S. tourist from Virginia.

The driver of the train, a veteran with a penchant for speed, was arrested Thursday but remains hospitalized for his head injuries. 

Francisco Jose Garzon Amo poasted a photo on his Facebook page last year that showed the speedometer in the train hitting 125 mph (201 kph). He boasted in the comments section about going so fast.

“What joy it would be to get level with the police and then go past them making their speed guns go off. Ha ha!'' he wrote in March 2012.

Amo deactivated his Facebook page on Thursday, according to the New York Daily News.

Stephen Ward, an 18-year-old American passenger injured on the train, told The Associated Press that he saw on a TV monitor screen inside his car that the train was traveling 121 mph (194 kph) seconds before the crash — far above the 50 mph (80 kph) speed limit on the curve where it derailed. Ward said the train appeared to have accelerated, not decelerated.

Gonzalo Ferre, president of the rail infrastructure company Adif, told AP the driver should have started slowing the train 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) before reaching a dangerous bend that train drivers had been told to respect.

"Four kilometers before the accident happened he already had warnings that he had to begin slowing his speed, because as soon as he exits the tunnel he needs to be traveling at 80 kilometers per hour," Ferre said.

Ana Maria Cordoba, 47, is the Virginia resident killed in the accident. Cordoba worked as a benefits specialist for the Diocese of Arlington and, according to AP, was in Spain with her husband and daughter on the way to Santiago de Compostela to meet up with her son, who had just completed a religious trek through the mountains of northern Spain known as "The Way of St. James'' or El Camino de Santiago.

Her husband and daughter survived the crash, the former hospitalized with skull injuries and the latter with a broken leg. 

CBS Spoke with Michael Donahue, the Director of Communications for the Diocese, about the news of her death.

“Several of the staff new that Ana Maria and her family were travelling over there [Spain], and we prayed intensely that she would be one of the survivors,” Donahue said. “We learned from her family that she was missing, and that her husband Phillipe and daughter Christina were in the hospital from their injuries. And then we learned later this afternoon that she was among the victims. It’s just been an incredibly sad day.”

Dramatic video footage from a security camera showed the train, which was traveling on the outskirts of Santiago de Compostela, slamming into a concrete wall as the engine overturned, piling carriages on top of each other in a wreckage of mangled steel.

"The railway warning systems detected that Francisco Jose Garzon Amo, the driver of the Alvia train that departed Madrid, was travelling at 190 kilometers an hour [112 mph] when it should not exceed 80 [50]," Spanish newspaper El Pais wrote.

"He is accused of crimes related to the accident," said Jaime Iglesias, Galicia’s police chief, according to Agence France Press.

Amo told investigators that the alarm went off and that he tried to brake but wasn’t able to avert a crash, El Pais reported.

"I hope no one died because it will weigh on my conscience," he reportedly told supervisors over the radio while trapped inside the cab after the eight-carriage train derailed, according to the AFP.

Al Jazeera and Wire Services

Forensic scientists examining the remains of those killed in the crash lowered the death count from 80 people to 78 Friday, a number they say could still change as they continue to identify victims.

Spain’s National Police forensics chief Antonio de Amo said they are still working to identify what they believe are the remains of six people.

King Juan Carlos called off public engagements to visit victims in the hospital where most of the injured are being treated. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has declared three days of national mourning.

"You will not be alone, the solidarity of all the Spanish people will always accompany you," he said in a speech.

More than 220 people were on board the train from Madrid to Galicia, many of them pilgrims and vacationers. Debris and bodies were scattered besides the tracks, and poignant signs of a long train journey like empty water bottles and snack packets bore witness to one of the biggest train disaster in Spanish history, Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull reported.

“Emergency services worked through the night in their search for bodies and survivors," said Hull. "They were helped by local residents who were still watching in disbelief hours later as the emergency phase of this operation turns to a recovery one in an effort to clear the tracks.”

The bodies of those killed were brought to a makeshift mortuary, where family members of the missing gathered in a desperate wait for the news.

“We heard about the accident and they are neither on the list of injured or so we are just waiting,” one family member of a missing passenger told Al Jazeera.

The U.S. Department of State confirmed that at least one of its citizens had died and five others had been injured in the crash. British Foreign Minister William Hague confirmed that at least one British passenger was also among the injured.

Al Jazeera and wire services