Divers photographed a “cocaine” plane at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea (10 photos)

In 1980, a plane carrying drugs failed to land on Norman's Cay in the Bahamas and crashed into the water. Between 1978 and 1982, the island served as the headquarters of Carlos Lehder, one of the leaders of the Medellin cartel and a close associate of Pablo Escobar.





The Curtiss C-46 Commando, which at the time was the largest twin-engine aircraft in the world and could carry large quantities of cargo, failed to land on the runway and ended up crashing to the seabed.



The Bahamas island is now a popular holiday destination, but has historically been used by drug lords as an ideal hideout and staging post for smuggling cocaine from Colombia to the United States.





Underwater photographer Ken Kiefer found the crash site and captured some impressive images.



“The plane crashed while transporting drugs for Pablo Escobar. It was really cool to see and be around a historic piece that is now home to marine life.”



“My wife Kimber was diving around the wreck, exploring it and studying the marine life that had accumulated there.”



During his leadership of the Medellin Cartel, Escobar controlled more than 80 percent of the cocaine supplied to the United States, placing him among the ten richest people in the world according to Forbes magazine.



Escobar entered the cocaine trade in the early 1970s, teaming up with other criminals to form the Medellin Cartel. By the mid-1980s, Pablo Escobar was worth an estimated $30 billion and had so much cash that he purchased a Learjet for the sole purpose of transporting his money.



More than 15 tons of cocaine were smuggled every day, bringing the cartel up to $420 million a week.

For much of his time at the top of the drug business, Escobar gained popularity by sponsoring charities and football clubs, sharing some of his wealth with local communities, and thus portraying himself as Robin Hood.



But terrorist campaigns carried out by Escobar's henchmen killed thousands of people and gradually turned the public against him - all while US law enforcement worked with Colombian police to destroy his empire.



Colombian law enforcement caught up with Escobar on December 2, 1993 in one of the middle-class neighborhoods of Medellin. A shootout ensued, and as Escobar tried to escape by running across the rooftops, he and his bodyguard were shot.