June 14 (Bloomberg) -- A merchant ship traveling between Uruguay and the U.K. found a “medium size” piece of debris from the Air France plane crash site in the Atlantic Ocean, the Brazilian military said yesterday.

The Gammagas, a ship sailing under the flag of Antigua and Barbuda, recovered the debris, which will be transferred to the Brazilian Navy, Vice Admiral Edison Lawrence told reporters in Recife, northeast Brazil. Lawrence didn’t say from which part of the plane the piece came.

No more bodies or debris were recovered yesterday by the Brazilians, and an air search was called off for most of the day because of bad weather, said Ramon Borges Cardoso, an Air Force brigadier.

Air France Flight 447, en route to Paris from Rio de Janeiro with 228 passengers and crew, went down in the ocean on June 1. A Brazilian Navy ship carrying 13 parts of the plane -- including the tail and nine bags with personal belongings of the passengers -- arrived today in the port of Recife, where they will be handed over to BEA, the French agency in charge of the investigation, Navy commander Marcos Borges Serta told reporters.

For the first time, Brazil’s military used the expression “human remains” rather than bodies in yesterday’s briefing.

“The conditions in which the last ones were found do not allow us to say body,” Cardoso said.

Identifying Bodies

Brazil revised the number of bodies it has recovered from the crash site to 43 from 44, the military said today in an e- mailed statement. Six more bodies are still in a French ship in the search area in the ocean, bringing the total to 49 found so far.

Cardoso said he met today in Recife with French ambassador Pierre-Jean Vandoorne, a diplomat named by the French government to follow the case and serve as a go-between with the families and authorities. The Brazilian military gave Vandoorne a progress report on the recovery efforts so far, Cardoso said.

Relatives of Brazilian passengers will be given “certificates of presence” on Flight 447, Vandoorne told reporters in Recife today. The papers, to be issued by Air France, are equivalent to temporary death certificates, he said, adding that relatives of French passengers already have received them.

Vandoorne said identification of the recovered bodies may take up to two months.

Victims’ Association

Christophe Guillot-Noel, the brother of a French victim of the crash, told Le Parisien daily that he has created a victims’ association. He said Air France offered an advance of 17,600 euros ($24,700), and that his association’s members declined the offer.

Air France declined to say whether it has made such offers to victims’ relatives and said it would comply with the Montreal convention on compensation, a spokesman said via phone today.

Investigators are examining whether ice damage or an obstruction of the plane’s airspeed sensors caused unreliable readings that may have contributed to the crash.

Accurate airspeed readings are crucial because flying too quickly can damage a plane’s airframe, while traveling too slowly produces a stall and loss of control.

Black Boxes

The French navy’s nuclear attack submarine Emeraude, equipped with advanced listening equipment, has joined the hunt for the flight recorders, known as black boxes. The devices may provide clues to what caused the crash.

Cardoso said on June 12 the authorities will review on June 19 how long the search will continue.

“Technically, there are possibilities of recovering bodies up to 20 days after the accident,” he said.

Speaking at a press event in Paris yesterday, Louis Gallois, chief executive officer of Airbus parent European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co., declined to elaborate on technical matters linked to the accident. He said it’s up to the French investigator to communicate on that.

“I know your readers are impatient, pilots, families are impatient, but it’s a long story,” Gallois said. “Remember the crash of Concorde, which was on the ground. It takes weeks if not months to know exactly what happened.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Helder Marinho in Recife at hmarinho@bloomberg.net; Diana Kinch in Rio de Janeiro at dkinch1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 14, 2009 17:40 EDT