At a Commerce Committee hearing today, Snowe said the February crash of Flight 3407 in Buffalo highlights the need for tighter regulations.

Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe today called on the Federal Aviation Administration to strengthen flight training regulations and fatigue rules. At a Commerce Committee hearing on aviation safety and pilot fatigue, Snowe said inexperienced pilots are "proliferating throughout the system with greater regularity, a significant number of them fatigued from traveling great distances to their assignments."

Snowe cited the February crash of a Colgan Air flight in Buffalo as an example. The crash, blamed largely on pilot fatigue and inexperience, claimed 50 lives. Snowe says such regional carriers, which account for about half of all U.S. domestic flights, are employing more pilots with fewer hours in the cockpit.

"I recently had the unique opportunity to speak at length with a veteran pilot of one of our legacy carriers. The individual, who had over twenty years of experience at a commercial carrier, someone who had flown in wartime as a member of our armed services, expressed to me a chilling sentiment: he was scared," Snowe said at the hearing.

Snowe says she's supporting legislation recently passed by the House and currently pending in the Senate, that would require all commercial pilots to have an Airline Transport Pilot license. That license requires pilots to have a minimum of 1,500 hours of flight time before they're allowed to fly a commercial aircraft.