The dissemination of the conversations between the Adif controllers in Atocha and the drivers of the trains involved in the accident in Urda (Toledo) has triggered a strong reaction among the railway unions, which denounce the premature targeting of the workers while the investigation into the disaster remains open. The recordings, known just a few hours after the crash that has left at least 69 dead, have made it possible to reconstruct part of the orders transmitted before the collision, but they have also opened a controversy over their origin, the context in which they were produced, and the responsibility of those who had to guarantee the safety of the traffic.
The outrage took another step this Friday. The Railway Traffic Union (SCF) has filed a complaint before the Orgaz Court so that it can be investigated how the audios reached the media, considering that their dissemination exposes the professionals to a public trial before the investigators have determined the causes of the tragedy. The organization has also requested the resignation of the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, over his statements about the actions of the control center.
The controversy arises after the Ministry's first explanations pointed to an incorrect authorization for the Renfe AVE to resume circulation. According to the reconstruction set out by Puente, the train received permission to continue with "normal running" despite the fact that the Iryo remained stopped further ahead. However, the unions warn that an erroneous order, if it is finally confirmed, is not enough on its own to explain why the safety mechanisms did not prevent the collision.
The Circulation Union takes the leak to court
The SCF has confirmed in a statement published this Friday that it has filed a complaint to clarify the origin of the recordings and determine whether the confidentiality obligations affecting railway communications and the accident investigation have been violated.
The organization considers it especially serious that the conversations began to be disseminated when all the testimonies had still not been collected nor the circumstances in which the circulation managers were working reconstructed.
"Pointing to the circulation manager before knowing all the circumstances is not investigating," warns the union, which calls for examining the human, technical and organizational factors, as well as the staffing, maintenance, working conditions and available resources.
The SCF has also requested accountability from the management of Adif and the resignation of Puente. Its reproach is not limited to the leak, but extends to the public interpretation of what happened and to the risk that responsibility will end up being concentrated on the employee who conveyed the authorization.
Raquel Ayllón questions whether the audio recordings allow the entire situation to be known
The spokesperson for the Sindicato de Circulación Ferroviario, Raquel Ayllón, appeared this Friday on La hora de La 1, on RTVE, to question whether the conversations released make it possible on their own to determine whether the controllers acted correctly.
Her explanation has focused on the so-called telefonema LZB 4, a regulatory communication that allows certain instructions to be transmitted to the driver when incidents occur in the train protection system.
"The conditions that we have to give for circulation are not specified in the telefonema that he has read, which is read LZB 4. They are not specified," Ayllón pointed out.
The spokesperson added that the specific instructions depend on the operational circumstances that are being handled at that moment: "That, depending on the situation in which it is being seen at that moment, is when it is decided what is said and what is not."
Ayllón also warned that all the testimonies and the circumstances surrounding the actions of her colleagues are still not known.
"All the testimonies are not known, it is not known what my colleagues are seeing," she pointed out before denouncing the dissemination of the recordings.
The union representative described the leak as "illegal" and announced that the general coordinator of her organization was going to file a complaint. The SCF later confirmed that that procedure had been carried out before the Orgaz Court.
Her statements do not rule out that there could have been an operational error, but they do question whether it is possible to assign definitive responsibility based on fragments of conversations without reconstructing the whole context.
CCOO, UGT, Semaf and CGT reject the search for a single culprit
Discontent is not limited to the Circulation Union. CCOO, UGT, Semaf and CGT have also rejected the dissemination of the recordings and have called for the accident to be investigated without making the control center workers the only ones responsible for what happened.
The general secretary of the railway sector of CCOO, Pepa Páez, has expressly asked that attention not be focused on the last link in the safety chain without knowing their working conditions and the circumstances of the incident.
For Páez, the investigation must determine what systems or procedures should have prevented a possible human error from resulting in a collision.
The union leader has questioned that responsibilities be assigned before all the data are known and has asked the minister to rectify his statements about the workers.
From UGT, Raquel González, head of the railway sector, has condemned the leak and has called for finding out who provided the recordings, how their release occurred and why they reached the media.
The general secretary of Semaf, Diego Martín, has described the dissemination of audios, which he considers partial, as "alarming and irresponsible" and has insisted that the causes must be determined through an independent investigation.
For its part, CGT has rejected the public singling out of the employees of the Atocha Regulation and Control Center and has warned that an accident of this severity can hardly be explained by examining only the actions of the last worker who intervened.
The debate on the LZB 3 and LZB 4 protocol
The technical discussion has intensified this Friday after El País published an investigation according to which the Atocha controllers used an inadequate protocol for the incident reported by the AVE driver.
The newspaper has compared the circulation manual with three railway experts and a source from Adif. According to that reconstruction, in the event of a transmission failure due to partial blocking, the LZB 3 procedure should have been applied, which required continuing under more restrictive circulation conditions.
Instead, an LZB 4 telephone message was transmitted from Atocha and the resumption of normal running was authorized.
The difference is decisive. The so-called "drive on sight" obliges the engine driver to adapt the speed in order to be able to stop before any visible obstacle, while normal running allows circulation in accordance with the general limits of the section.
However, the journalistic investigation also points to a broader problem than the choice of a telephone message. The experts consulted point out possible training deficiencies and the absence of a last safety barrier capable of preventing an erroneous authorization from ultimately causing an accident.
This is precisely one of the issues highlighted by the unions. Although it were confirmed that the controllers applied an incorrect procedure, it would still be necessary to explain why that decision was not detected or corrected before the collision.
The warnings about personnel and safety systems
The Sindicato de Circulación maintains that it had been warning Adif, the Ministry of Transport and the State Railway Safety Agency for years about problems affecting the activity of the control centers.
In its statement this Friday, the organization denounces a lack of personnel, workload overload, prolonged workdays, and difficulties in enjoying the mandatory breaks.
Among the examples it cites is the existence of shifts in which a single circulation manager would have had to manage up to 104 telephone messages, in addition to attending to the screens, incidents, and railway operations.
The union also recalls that last May 6 it requested the intervention of the State Railway Safety Agency to review the working times and rest periods of the professionals.
These complaints do not prove that the working conditions caused the Urda accident, but they identify circumstances that the workers' representatives consider essential to reconstruct what happened.
Added to them is the situation of the LZB, the protection system whose failure triggered the initial incident. Puente has acknowledged that it suffered 170 incidents during 2026, although he has defended that this figure is within parameters comparable to those of other European systems.
The replacement of the LZB by the ERTMS system on the Madrid-Seville line has not been completed either, despite the project being awarded in 2021 and initially envisaging its entry into service at the beginning of 2026.
Is it illegal to leak the audios of the Urda accident?
Law 2/2024, of August 1, which regulates the Independent Administrative Authority for the Technical Investigation of railway, maritime and civil aviation accidents and incidents, establishes in its article 14 that the data, recordings, communications and reports obtained by the authority are part of the investigation information.
The regulation distinguishes, however, between that information and that which has specifically a reserved character, a category that includes, among other elements, witness testimonies, certain identifying documents and especially sensitive data of the persons involved.
Article 17 imposes a duty of confidentiality on those who access protected information because of their participation in the investigation or their relation to the accident, and provides for liabilities when that obligation is breached.
Therefore, if the audios came from an investigation or from a system subject to confidentiality obligations through unauthorized disclosure, there could be a legal violation, whose nature and consequences would depend on the circumstances.
To determine this, it will be necessary to clarify who had access to the recordings, how they were obtained, whether they were incorporated into the judicial or technical proceedings and what specific obligations weighed on the person who provided them.
It is also necessary to differentiate between leaking a protected recording and publishing it in a media outlet. The possible liability of the person who breaches a duty of confidentiality does not automatically imply that a journalist commits a crime by disseminating information of public interest. Freedom of information, the relevance of the facts and the rights of the affected persons must be assessed in each case.
The complaint filed by the SCF will allow the origin of the audios to be investigated, but it does not amount to a judicial ruling that has declared their dissemination illegal.