WASHINGTON — Government inspectors Thursday harshly criticized the Federal Aviation

Administration for its response to the Colgan Air crash in Clarence center a year ago, saying the agency's

effort to get airlines to voluntarily fix safety problems had not addressed the problems the

accident raised.

Of the FAA's 10 initiatives tied to the FAA's voluntary "Call to Action" effort, eight are

either falling behind schedule or not meeting their intended goals, the U.S. Department of

Transportation's inspector general said.

Most importantly, the FAA has fallen behind in developing tougher rules on on pilot

training and fatigue, and has inadequately reviewed training programs at the airlines.

"FAA also has not followed up to ensure air carriers' Call to Action commitments

effectively meet planned safety goals," Calvin L. Scovel III, inspector general of the U.S.

Department of Transportation, said in prepared testimony for a House hearing this morning.

"Other critical issues emerged after the Colgan accident that remain unaddressed, such as

potential correlations between pilot experience and compensation," Scovel added.

Colgan Air operated the flight for Continental that crashed Feb. 12. The agency did special

investigations of the airlines' pilot training programs as part of the Call to Action, but

Scovel's agency found that the inspections were ineffectively designed and implemented.

"More importantly, the [inspector general] review identified more than 20 air carriers that

had not fully implemented remedial training programs as previously recommended by FAA in

2006," Scovel said in his prepared remarks.

Scovel released his conclusions at a hearing of the House Aviation Subcommittee, where FAA

Administrator Randy Babbitt defended his agency's effort, which it detailed in a report

released last week.

Babbitt said the agency should be given credit for prodding all the nation's airlines

into enlisting in a voluntary safety program that many had previously shunned.

"I am concerned that no one is taking into account the benefits in our final report that we

have achieved," Babbitt said.

In addition, the FAA announced today that it is giving the public 60 days to comment on a

new set of pilot training rules the agency intends to draw up. Those rules would be in

addition to another training proposal that the agency proposed 13 months ago but that is being

redrawn amid airline industry opposition.

The document announcing the coming rulemaking process suggested the agency would

consider boosting the number of flight hours required by new co-pilots to 750, up from 250

today.

But the announcement was posed not as a definitive proposal, but as a series of discussion

items addressing questions such as:

Whether co-pilots as well as pilots should be required to hold an Air Transport

Pilot certificate, which requires them to have 1,500 hours of flying experience. That

requirement is a key goal of the Families of Continental Flight 3407.

Whether academic credit should be accepted in lieu of some of those hours.

Whether the FAA should establish a new type of license short of the ATP

certification, which will nonetheless address concerns about the fact that co-pilots are

currently required to have only 250 hours of flying experience.

Whether safety could be boosted by addressing pilot certification issues on an

airline-by-airline basis.

Today's hearing came two days after the National Transportation Safety Board released its

final report in the crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407 in Clarence Center last February,

which Colgan operated. Fifty people died in the accident

The report cited pilot error as the probable cause of the crash, but the safety agency also

released 25 safety recommendations, many focusing on pilot training.