The FAA's new regulations come 18 months after Continental Connection Flight 3407 crashed and burned in Clarence Center, N.Y. (David Duprey/Associated Press)

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is expected to publish within days new rules aimed at reducing pilot fatigue, more than 18 months after a deadly airplane crash in western New York state.

Fifty people were killed when Continental Connection Flight 3407 crashed in Clarence Center in the Buffalo area on Feb. 12, 2009. A National Transportation Safety Board investigation found that both pilots on board were probably suffering from fatigue, although fatigue wasn't a direct cause of the accident.

The Obama administration then promised swift action to prevent similar tragedies, including governing the number of hours pilots may work to prevent tired flight crews from making fatal errors.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood wrote in June 2009 that the FAA was in a hurry and wouldn't wait for Congress "to add mandatory layers to airline safety," nor even for crash investigators to complete their work, "because air passengers deserve action."

Fifteen months and a half-dozen missed deadlines later, the FAA is finally about to propose new regulations on how many hours airlines can schedule pilots to be on duty or in the cockpit.

A draft was submitted to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review last week, and a proposed rule is likely to be published within days, industry officials said.

The House of Representatives has scheduled a hearing on the proposal next week.

Regulations to be costly

Even when the new rules are proposed, it will likely be months — possibly even a year or longer — before they take effect. Pilot unions and relatives of crash victims who have been campaigning for the new rules said they are troubled by the lengthy process because safety is at stake.

The chairman of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Congressman Jim Oberstar, has suggested airlines are trying to delay the new regulations. (Charles Dharapak/Associated Press) Transportation and FAA officials declined to discuss the reason for the delays.

Transportation Department spokeswoman Olivia Alair said only the department was "working as quickly as possible to get the proposal out for comment."

U.S. lawmakers, industry officials and union leaders familiar with the process said the difficulty is in demonstrating that the safety benefits of stricter rules on flight hours — lives saved and injuries avoided — would outweigh the cost of the rules to the struggling airline industry.

Depending upon how they are written, new regulations could cost the industry billions of dollars over the next decade.

The result, these insiders say, has been a months long back-and-forth between the government and industry.

Officials at airline trade associations say they haven't been lobbying to block or delay new regulations. But the cost estimates the airline industry has supplied the government amount to a kind of lobbying, said Rep. James Oberstar, a Democrat of Minnesota and chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

"I know for sure they are using the rulemaking process to make their case," said Oberstar, who has talked privately with Babbitt about the situation. He said one reason for the delay is that the FAA has been trying to "bulletproof" the proposal against possible challenges.

"The companies don't want any change that will cost them 10 cents," Oberstar said. "That's what it all comes down to."