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The limousine accident that killed 20 people in an upstate New York town in October was over in a few terrible moments: The packed, speeding vehicle flew through an intersection, slammed into a parked car and immediately smashed into a shallow gully.

But the search for answers is taking far longer, as local and federal authorities have found themselves in a standoff over access to the vehicle and other potentially important evidence.

That conflict flared on Thursday as the National Transportation Safety Board released a letter accusing the Schoharie County district attorney, Susan J. Mallery, of blocking its investigative team at almost every turn, including access to the limousine.

“We are gravely concerned that your lack of responsiveness to our requests has seriously impeded our abilities to carry out our congressionally mandated duties to properly complete this safety investigation and potentially prevent similar accidents in the future,” wrote the board’s general counsel, Kathleen Silbaugh.

The letter, dated Dec. 14, was first reported by WRGB in Albany.

More than two months after the crash, federal authorities said they still had not been allowed to look inside the wrecked limo — a modified 2001 Ford Excursion — in order to inspect its braking systems, which had failed state inspections, or to examine modifications that had increased the car’s occupancy.

They said they had also been denied photographs and video of the vehicle, which careened down a country highway in Schoharie, west of Albany, on Oct. 6.

All 17 passengers — including four sisters and a newlywed couple — were killed by the impact, along with two pedestrians and the limousine’s driver, who was later found not to have the proper license. Many of the victims were in their 20s and 30s.

[Read our reconstruction of the limousine’s fatal ride.]

Despite the loss of life and global media coverage of the accident, federal pleas for access to the evidence — Ms. Silbaugh also made a more measured request in mid-October — have been met with unusual resistance by New York officials.

In her October letter to the county, Ms. Silbaugh suggested that local officials had several concerns about federal involvement in the investigation. Those worries included federal officials’ releasing information about their investigation as the state criminal probe continued, and N.T.S.B. investigators’ being called as witnesses in a criminal trial. Ms. Silbaugh wrote that both those concerns were misplaced.

On Thursday, the State Police said that their investigation of the accident was continuing and forwarded questions about the N.T.S.B.’s letter to Schoharie County officials. Ms. Mallery did not respond to requests for comment; her office said she was in meetings.

In their more recent letter, federal officials seem exasperated by local intransigence, adding that their pleas repeatedly went unacknowledged. “What we have been told is that your schedule is full,” Ms. Silbaugh wrote, “and you are too busy to respond.”

The seeming impasse in the investigation is in stark contrast to the violence of the accident and the flurry of developments in its immediate aftermath, including the revelation that the owner of the limousine company that rented the vehicle, Prestige Limousine, was Shahed Hussain, a former F.B.I. informant with a criminal record who has been living in Pakistan.

Shortly after the accident, Mr. Hussain’s son Nauman Hussain, the operator of the company, was charged with criminally negligent homicide. He pleaded not guilty.

Ms. Mallery’s office is in charge of prosecuting Nauman Hussain. Because of that, Ms. Silbaugh said, federal authorities have allowed Schoharie County first access to the evidence.

The N.T.S.B. is an independent federal agency that investigates major transportation accidents. Its mandate is to recommend improvements; it does not have the authority to prosecute.

But while some information has been shared with the safety board, including state transportation reports and information on the victims’ families, Ms. Silbaugh wrote that access to “primary, essential evidence” had been delayed, resulting in “safety-critical evidence being lost.”

After news of the deadlock spread, Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten E. Gillibrand issued a joint statement urging county officials to allow the N.T.S.B. “full access to the limo,” saying the criminal and safety investigations should run parallel.

“We understand the immense significance this criminal case holds, which is why it’s imperative it continues in a thorough and meticulous manner,” the senators, both Democrats, wrote. “However, it is vital that the safety investigation also proceed as immediately and efficiently as possible.”

In its letter, the board also expressed concern about the storage of the vehicle and any parts that might have been removed from it, as well as possible contamination or degradation of evidence.

“During this two-month period, key perishable investigative information may have been lost because you denied the N.T.S.B. the necessary access,” Ms. Silbaugh wrote, noting that the board’s team had not been able to inspect for possible corrosion of parts or the status of the limousine’s electrical system.

Federal authorities have also not been able to inspect other vehicles impounded from Prestige Limousine, they said.

For families who lost relatives in the crash, meanwhile, the lack of progress in the investigation seemed secondary to the prospect of a holiday season without their loved ones.

“Every time I think about Michael, I just start crying: I can’t face it yet,” said Mary Ashton, the mother of Michael Ukaj, a 34-year-old former Marine who died in the limousine. “I don’t really even know what’s going on with the investigation. I just know that my son is gone.”

Luis Ferré-Sadurní contributed reporting from New York.

Follow Jesse McKinley on Twitter at @jessemckinley.

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