Sao Paulo  – The Brazilian government late Tuesday declared three days of mourning after the crash of an Air France plane with 228 people on board, hours after it confirmed debris had been found from the wreckage in some of the Atlantic’s deepest waters.

The chance of finding survivors after the plane vanished on Monday was seen as extremely slim, and grief counseling units were working with family members gathered at the departure airport in Rio de Janeiro and destination airport in Paris.

Vice President Jose Alencar, who is governing while President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is in Guatemala, said the mourning period was in honour of the crash victims.

Earlier in the day, Brazilian Defence Minister Nelson Jobim informed family members in Rio and then the public that authorities were certain the Brazilian Air Force had found debris from the aircraft, about 1,200 kilometres northeast of the Brazilian coast.

The wreckage was floating over a 5-kilometre-stretch about 650 kilometres from the Brazilian island Fernando de Noronha and near the so-called Saint Peter and Paul Saint Paul Islets, a small, uninhabited archipelago that is home to a Brazilian Navy scientific station. (dpa)