An American Airlines jet with 60 passengers and four crew members aboard collided Wednesday with an Army helicopter while landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, D.C., prompting a large search-and-rescue operation in the nearby Potomac River.

U.S. politicians expressed grief and sympathy on Wednesday night after a passenger plane from Kansas collided with a military helicopter near Reagan National Airport.

A passenger jet collided Wednesday with a military helicopter while landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington. (CNN, WUSA, WJLA, SEE PREFONTS)

An American Airlines jet with 60 passengers and four crew members aboard collided Wednesday with an Army helicopter while landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, prompting a large search-and-rescue operation in the nearby Potomac River.

Some experts, politicians and airport managers have been warning of the risks posed by the crowded airspace at Reagan Washington National Airport.

FAA-licensed commercial pilot Anthony Roman provides professional analysis of the Washington D.C. plane crash on ‘Varney & Co.’

The audio indicates that air traffic controllers tried to warn the Army helicopter about a nearby Canadair Regional Jet.

Wednesday’s crash has resurfaced concerns about the airport’s proximity to the river, narrow landing space and overcrowding. Despite the geographic and logistical challenges, Congress authorized 10 additional “slots,” or flights, to DCA’s daily flight schedule.

Details are emerging about the Washington air disaster that killed 67 people — and some of those factors are only likely to fuel political fights. On Thursday afternoon, reports emerged from the

Congress added more daily flights to the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport’s schedule last year — and multiple other times over the past quarter century — despite

The airspace around Washington, D.C., is congested and complex — a combination aviation experts have long worried could lead to catastrophe.

On Tuesday, a day before Wednesday’s fatal collision, a Republic Airways jet from Windsor Locks, Conn., was minutes away from landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport before it aborted its landing to avoid a helicopter in its way.