MADRID (AFP) - A Spanish train was hurtling around a curve at 179kmh, more than twice the speed limit, when it leapt off the tracks in a disaster that killed 79 people, a report on the contents of the "black box" recorders showed on Friday.

The driver was on the telephone to the on-board conductor and had stopped speaking just 11 seconds before the July 24 derailment near the north-western city of Santiago de Compostela, said the report released by the high court of the Galicia region.