Train crash driver 'on the phone'

The driver of the Spanish disaster train was on the phone and travelling at 95 mph, almost twice the speed limit, when it derailed killing 79 people.

The train had been going as fast as 119 mph shortly before the accident, and the driver activated the brakes "seconds before the crash," according to a written statement from the court in Santiago de Compostela, whose investigators gathered the information from two black box data recorders recovered from the train.

The speed limit on the section of track was 50 mph.

Driver Francisco Jose Garzon Amo, was talking on the phone to an official of national rail company Renfe when the crash happened and apparently was consulting a paper document at the time. Garzon was provisionally charged on Sunday with multiple counts of negligent homicide.

The driver received a call on his work phone in the cabin, not his personal mobile, to tell him what approach to take toward his final destination. The Renfe employee on the telephone "appears to be a controller," the court said.

"From the contents of the conversation and from the background noise it seems that the driver (was) consulting a plan or similar paper document," the court said.

Investigators from the Santiago de Compostela court, forensic police experts, the Ministry of Transport and Renfe examined the contents of the two black boxes recovered from the lead and rear cars of the train.

The train was carrying 218 passengers when it hurtled off the tracks last Wednesday evening. It slammed into a concrete wall, and some of the carriage caught fire. The Spanish rail agency has said the brakes should have been applied 2.5 miles before the train reached the curve.