Authorities investigate the scene after a small plane crashed into the parking lot of a post office in Lafayette, La., Saturday, Dec. 28, 2019. Several people died in the crash.

ATLANTA — The lack of a distress call and flight data recorder coupled with mangled and charred wreckage will make finding the cause of a fiery airplane crash in Louisiana extremely challenging, federal officials said Sunday.

National Transportation Safety Board Vice Chairman Bruce Landsberg said at a news conference that it could take 12 to 18 months to figure out why the two-engine Piper Cheyenne fell from the sky about a minute after taking off from the Lafayette Regional Airport on Saturday.

The plane crashed near a post office and caught fire in seconds, leaving the ground littered with burning wreckage. Five of the six people on board were killed. The plane was en route to the Peach Bowl playoff game in Atlanta between LSU and Oklahoma. Among those killed was sports broadcaster Carley McCord, the daughter-in-law of LSU coach Steven Ensminger.

“We’ll be looking very carefully at the pilot’s qualifications, the training that they had, medical certification and also the history on the aircraft and its maintenance records,” Landsberg said. “We have two videos that have been turned into us, and we will be analyzing those.”