The US House of Representatives has passed a bill on 13 October 2009, moved by James Oberstar of Minneapolis and Jerry Costello of Illinois, which requires FAA to toughen regulations on pilot training, qualifications and work schedules. That they did in response to a fatal crash in upstate New York in February and scores of other accidents involving regional airlines. FAA now requires from all pilots that fly for a passenger-carrying airline to have an Air Transport Pilot Certificate, effectively raising the number of flying hours an entry-level pilot must have from current 250 hours to 1,500 Hours. FAA is now required to upscale minimum education and training of schooling courses to assess mental capability and maturity to handle the task of an airline pilot. The FAA action is extreme but alarm bells were raised also by the most recent incident involving the two pilots of North-West Airlines Flight 188, an A320, carrying 147 passengers which overshot its destination Minneapolis airport by 150 miles because the pilots were busy talking to each other. I hope the CAA Pakistan is abreast of the concerns within FAA and keeps itself in pace with the industry to prevent a repeat of censure like the EU ban on PIA. There is a need to revisit the civil aviation sector and re-asses the alleged irregularities in pilot recruitments by the national flagcarrier, especially in the light of AVM Mushaf Ali Mirs accident report pinpointing the culprits involved. The spate of recent incidents involving brand new ATR and B777 are a cause for concern. -TAHIR HASSAN, New York, October 30.