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Conductor Was On Phone When Train Crashed

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Killing 79.

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Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty

Don’t talk and drive. The conductor of a Spanish train that was going twice the speed limit when it crashed, killing 79 people, was on the phone. A Spanish court says the train's black-box data recorder shows the conductor talking with a rail company official and consulting a paper document when the train went off the rails. The train had been going as fast as 119 miles per hour, but the conductor applied the brakes “seconds before the crash,” bringing the speed down to 95, still almost twice the speed limit. The conductor has been provisionally charged with negligent homicide.

Read it at Associated Press