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FERNANDO DE NORONHA, Brazil: French and Brazilian planes and ships were on Wednesday converging on an area in the Atlantic where debris from an Air France jet was spotted, but hopes were low of finding the black boxes that could explain the tragedy.
Several Brazilian military aircraft as well as a French Falcon 50 and a US P-3 Orion were overflying the zone 1,000 kilometres off Brazil's northeast coast, Brazil's air force said.
The first of five Brazilian Navy vessels was due to arrive in the zone later Wednesday to begin the process of recovering debris - and any bodies that might be found.
None have been located so far, and hopes were virtually nil of finding survivors.
One Brazilian aircraft with special radar and sensors discovered a new patch of debris on Wednesday including a metallic object seven metres in diameter and a fuel slick 20 kilometres long, air force spokesman Colonel Jorge Amaral told reporters.
The objects were found 90 kilometres south of other patches of debris - including an airline seat, a life-vest and cables - spotted the day before.
Three civilian cargo ships that had been rerouted to the area on Tuesday were acting as signposts, lacking the capability to localise and recover the debris.
Brazil's government has declared three days of national mourning for those on board Air France flight AF 447, which was carrying 228 people when it came down on Monday, four hours into its 11-hour flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
In the French capital, services were held in their memory, including one in Notre Dame cathedral attended by President Nicolas Sarkozy and French passengers' families in which a condolence message from Benedict XVI was read out.
The reason for the accident remained a mystery.
The Air France pilots issued no distress call, but the plane sent automated messages over three minutes suggesting it had been badly damaged or was breaking up.
France is leading the inquiry into the cause of the disaster, but it looked far from certain that the plane's black boxes could be recovered from the rugged bottom of the Atlantic, in waters as deep as 6,000 metres.
The director of the French air investigation agency, Paul Louis Arslanian, said he was "not totally optimistic" the boxes would be recovered from the "deep and mountainous" place into which they are thought to have sunk.
He added that even if they were found there was no guarantee the speed and altitude data and cockpit recordings would be enough to solve the puzzle.
Two officials with the French agency were already in Brazil handling the early stages on the probe.
Among other ships heading to the debris zone is a French research vessel carrying two mini-submarines, the best hope of tracking down the boxes, which ought to emit a location signal.
But Pierre Cochonat, of the French marine research institute Ifremer, warned that unless the search area could be narrowed down, "it's equivalent to looking for a needle in a haystack."
If final confirmation comes that all those on board the Air France plane perished, it would be the worst disaster for the French airline in its 70-year history.
It would also be the worst civil aviation accident since 2001, when an American Airlines jet crashed in New York killing all 260 people on board.
The 216 passengers on Air France flight AF 447 included 126 men, 82 women, seven children and a baby.
The crew comprised 11 French nationals and one Brazilian. - AFP/de
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