Photographer at the Scene of Deadly Train Crash in Spain Discovers Vital Clue
Attending the scene of a fatal accident is one of the more harrowing aspects of a press photographer’s job, as they don’t know what they will find upon arrival.
But for one news photographer who arrived at the scene of the high-speed train crash in southern Spain on Sunday, that has claimed the lives of at least 42 people, their probing has led to the unearthing of a potentially vital piece of evidence.
The anonymous photographer on assignment for The New York Times discovered what looks to be the underside of a train carriage half-submerged in the stream of a gully some 900 feet away from the scene of the accident and outside of the cordon zone set up by Spanish authorities.
According to The Times, the photographer showed his images to police officers who said they had been looking for it. The photographer then pinpointed the massive piece of metal on a map.
Other images from the scene show a derailed carriage lying on its side with the wheels missing; perhaps this is what the photographer has discovered.
“This is going to be real important if this turns out to be the root cause of the accident,” David B. Clarke, an associate professor and railroad expert at the Center for Transportation Research in Knoxville, Tennessee, tells The Times.
A New York attorney specializing in transportation accidents says, “the location of where parts are found can be critically important in reconstructing the accident sequence.” Andrew Maloney suggests that since the piece is so far from the scene of the accident, “it could mean that it was the cause of the derailment.”
If the piece of locomotive does turn out to be relevant to the investigation, then it wouldn’t be the first time a press photographer played a vital role in piecing together an accident.
Photographers are thought to have played a crucial role when two commercial airliners collided into one another mid-air while flying above the Grand Canyon in 1956. News gatherers working for LIFE Magazine took photos of the hard-to-get-to wreckage, which were later used by investigators searching for answers.
Sunday’s high-speed train crash near the city of Córdoba is the country’s worst rail disaster in over a decade. Spain’s rail network is envied by many countries, and authorities are desperately searching for answers to what caused the devastating crash.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
