The driver of a train that derailed in northwestern Spain last week , killing 79 people , was on the phone with railway staff when the train crashed , court officials announced Tuesday , citing information from data recorders . The train was going 153 kph ( 95 mph ) when it derailed , the superior tribunal of Galicia said . That 's nearly twice the speed limit on the curve where the accident happened . Authorities have charged the train 's driver , Francisco Jose Garzon , with 79 counts of homicide by professional recklessness and an undetermined number of counts of causing injury by professional recklessness . A court has granted Garzon conditional release , but his license to operate a train has been suspended for six months . He also was required to surrender his passport and report to court weekly . CNN efforts to locate him have been unsuccessful . Spain train crash victims mourned at memorial mass . The train , nearing the end of a six-hour trip between Madrid and Ferrol , derailed Wednesday evening as it hurtled around a bend in Santiago de Compostela . Minutes before the derailment , Garzon received a call on his work phone , apparently receiving instructions on the way to Ferrol from a Renfe staff member , the court said Tuesday . Background noise suggested he was looking at or shuffling papers , the court said . On Spain 's railroad system , command and control posts can communicate with drivers at any point during a journey , a spokeswoman from Renfe -- the Spanish railroad company -- told CNN 's Karl Penhaul . Drivers communicate via radio-telephones known in Spanish as `` tren-tierras '' or train-to-land . But drivers also use mobile phones if radio-telephones are not working or `` when it 's considered necessary , '' the spokeswoman said . Steve Harrod , a railroad transportation expert at Ohio 's University of Dayton , said he was stunned by the report that the driver may have been speaking on the phone shortly before the crash . In the United States , Harrod said , railroad drivers are not allowed to use cell phones to prevent dangerous distractions . Shortly before the train crashed , according to reports , the Spanish train had passed from a computer-controlled area of the track to a zone that requires the driver to take control of braking and acceleration , Harrod said . `` It 's possible that the driver 's phone conversation -- which apparently was part of his official capacity as a driver -- distracted him and he missed the transition from automatic to driver control , '' Harrod said . He may have been unaware he was in control of the train and realized , 'oh , no , we 're headed for a curve . ' If that 's true , I really do n't think it was his fault . '' The Renfe spokeswoman told CNN that command and control posts have real-time systems to show each train 's precise location at a given time . If this were the case , a controller who would have phoned the train driver might have known the train was approaching a curve . According to an interview in state-owned Efe news service with the president of the state-owned Administrator of Railway Infrastructures , the train should have started slowing down about 4 kilometers ( 2.48 miles ) before the curve . At 192 kph , the train would have been traveling about 3.2 kilometers a minute . He hit the brakes seconds before the crash , bringing the speed down from 192 kph ( 119 mph ) , according to the court . He was still on the phone when the train flew off the tracks . Of the 79 who died in the ensuing wreck , 63 were from Spain . Others were from the United States , Latin America and Europe . The victims were remembered Monday in a memorial Mass at a Catholic cathedral in Santiago de Compostela . `` Our brothers lost their lives ... when they had so many plans , '' said Archbishop Julian Barrio . '' It is not easy to understand and accept this reality , '' he said , `` but I say to you , let our pain not be wasted . Everything has meaning in our lives . We are not shouting in a vacuum . '' Victim : 'It felt like a roller coaster '
Phone call may have distracted train driver shortly before crash , expert says . Spain : Driver received call from railway staff shortly before crash . At derailment , train was at 95 mph , court says ; speed limit for bend is 90 mph . 79 people died in Wednesday 's derailment in northwestern Spain .