Andalucía train crash: Guardia Civil suspect document mnanipulation in fatality probe

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Investigators flag 'unwarranted signatures' and inconsistent reports regarding the faulty track weld that caused the 2026 Adamuz derailment

Melchor Sáiz-Pardo and Mateo Balín

Tuesday, 3 March 2026, 16:29

The Guardia Civil have informed the Montoro court, which is investigating the Adamuz train accident, of possible irregularities and manipulations in relevant documentation regarding the section of the tracks where the Iryo train derailed.

According to the Guardia Civil's latest official report, the commission for the investigation of railway accidents (CIAF) has warned that, among other issues, key documents contain some "unwarranted signatures".

In a previous statement from 17 February, the Guardia Civil warned the court that the CIAF had detected "various inconsistencies" in the documentation provided by state rail infrastructure company Adif.

Adif has firmly denied any manipulation of these documents and sources say that all the required papers have been handed over to the commission "without any retouching".

The investigation centres on the weld located at kilometre point 318+681, identified as the first point at which the rail fractured following the passage of the Iryo train travelling towards Madrid at 7.43pm. The working hypothesisis that the failure of this aluminothermic weld caused the rail to break, leading to the subsequent derailment.

The alerts regarding potential irregularities in the documents concerning these welds stem from the analysis of documentation prepared by engineering firm Ayesa, which Adif had contracted in 2025 to oversee the renovation work at the Adamuz junction station (PB). According to a letter from 10 February, head of the CIAF Iñaki Barrón warned the court of "different inconsistencies after analysing the documentation presented by Ayesa".

The investigators expressed "doubts about the validity" of certain reports. A document entitled 'Informe final de soldaduras aluminotérmicas del PB de Adamuz (Córdoba - Sevilla)' was drawn up on 25 June 2025, but underwent modifications three days later. After the accident, a new version appeared on 1 February 2026. The CIAF speaks of an "inconsistency in the two versions" and stresses that "it is not possible to know exactly which part of the document has been modified at which point in time".

According to the Guardia Civil, there are contradictions appearing in several documents.

An entire chain of command under investigation

Another highly sensitive aspect concerns the signatures appearing on the welding reports and neutralisation records prepared by Galician company Maquisaba, responsible for carrying out the joint on the night of May 24, 2025.

According to the CIAF, several of the signatures are "scanned images of an easily manipulated handwritten signature". The police report states that "there are no guarantees regarding the signatures appearing on many of the documents", which could compromise the formal reliability of these files.

The whole chain of control over the welding is now also under judicial and technical scrutiny.

Earlier in the investigation, the Guardia Civil informed the court that Adif might have removed some sections of the track to transfer them to the Hornachuelos warehouse without judicial permission.