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So NewsNation's Joe Khalil joins us live in Washington.

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And Joe, this really is something that some lawmakers had previously feared could happen

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because of crowding in that airspace.

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Yeah, Nicole, two days out now, and the questions are starting to come about

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what can be done to try to prevent this, what went wrong.

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Obviously, there's investigations happening.

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What we can report, though, is that leading up to Wednesday night's crash,

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there were reports of literally hundreds over the last couple of years of near misses

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over, you know, five years or so, and the numbers seem to be ticking up higher and higher.

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In fact, here, where we are at Reagan National Airport, where this crash happened Wednesday night,

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there were three near misses in the last three years, and two out of those three we know

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also involved helicopters and airplanes nearly hitting each other.

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These are the dates here, so you can see, once in 22, once in 2023, and once in 2024,

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all near misses, these aircraft coming within 300 feet of each other.

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That is alarming and obviously chilling, especially considering what we saw Wednesday night.

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Now, we certainly don't want to speculate as to what caused this crash specifically.

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We can report this, what we know, which is that lawmakers for some time had been warning,

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and industry experts had been warning about this airport in particular.

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They say that it was built not to exceed a certain number of flights day to day.

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It was built for roughly 15 million passengers a year,

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and that at this point now, they've been adding flights decade after decade.

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It is now at something like 25 million passengers every year.

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Senator Tim Kaine took to the Senate floor almost a year ago saying that DCA was over its capacity,

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and he was warning the congestion in the airspace could lead to not just delays, but mid-air collisions.

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It's, again, a chilling warning looking back a year ago, listening to him describe what he says were red flags.

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He says during this debate where they were debating over rules for the FAA and whether they should change that,

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there was discussion about adding flights to DCA, and he said, quote,

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that is a problem waiting to happen, referencing a near miss.

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He says, I've described this near accident in the last two weeks as a flashing red warning signal to Congress.

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Do not add more flights.

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Do not jam more flights into the busiest runways in the United States.

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He was warning specifically about a scenario like what played out on Wednesday.

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So, again, Nicole, obviously, you know, he said just a day or so ago

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that it's almost difficult for him to look back and think to what he said on the Senate floor to some of his colleagues.

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That bill ended up passing, and they added 10 flights.

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The flight from Wichita to DCA, which included the American Airlines flight Wednesday involved in this crash,

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was added as a part of that bill just in the last year.

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So there will be a lot of lessons learned.

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There will be a lot of investigation to be done.

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But those warnings from back a year ago now ringing in the ears and minds of those who have to comb through this

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and figure out how to fix it.

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Oh, yeah, absolutely.

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Joe, so we mentioned in the top of this some changes by the FAA,

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at least temporarily, to helicopter routes there.

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What more do we know?

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Yeah, so just this morning, the FAA announcing that they are indefinitely pausing all helicopter flights

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in what they call the lower-altitude corridor.

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It's the very sort of airspace, if you think of the sky in sort of lanes in terms of elevation,

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the lower ones, which is where this helicopter was during that tragic crash you're seeing on your screen,

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that corridor is now no more helicopter flights.

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We don't know when or if they will resume,

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but the FAA making that call today, saying, for the time, these are going to be paused.