Train driver can't explain Spain crash in video

MADRID -- The driver of the train that derailed in northwestern Spain, killing 79 people, has said he was traveling at twice the speed limit when he approached a treacherous turn.

But, sitting uneasily before a judge, he waved his hands in front of his face and was at a loss to explain why he didn't slow down in a courtroom video released Thursday by a Spanish newspaper.

"I can't explain it," Francisco Jose Garzon Amo said, shifting in his chair and looking around. "I still don't understand how I didn't see . . . mentally, or whatever. I just don't know." The journey was "going fine" until the curve was upon him, he said. When the danger became clear, he thought, "Oh my God, the curve, the curve, the curve. I won't make it."

The edited video of Garzon's appearance at Sunday night's court session in Santiago de Compostela, where the accident occurred last week, was released by the newspaper ABC.

In the video, Garzon, a slightly built 52-year-old with short-cropped gray hair and glasses, appears shaken and at times hesitant. He sits in a chair in front of the judge, with four rows of chairs behind him in the small courtroom.

Garzon's testimony added little new to what is already known about the crash on the evening of July 24 as the high-speed train, carrying 218 people in eight carriages, approached the capital of Spain's northwestern Galician region.

But the video was the public's first look at the court testimony of the driver who walked away from the accident with a gash in his head. -- AP