1980s under water plane, possibly drug related, missed night landing, low fuel ? Book exists.

Nice find, there are a few bits of info about it around on the net:

Quote:

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The Bahamas were a mecca for drugsmugglers in the 1970's until the government got its act together and cleared them out. The most notorious of them was Carlos Lehder who bought Normans Cay to use as his base. Although all is quiet and peaceful now the evidence of its previous history is very obvious - a semi submerged drugrunners plane lies in the anchorage. It rained the whole time we were there, but hey, we're English and so rain didn't stop us from snorkeling over the wreck. We moored the dinghy to the tail fin of the plane - that was a first! The plane was still surprisingly complete although almost buried in sand. The current round it was strong otherwise we'd have been able to sit in the pilots seat

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Quote:

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Before we left Normans Cay we took the dinghy for a snorkel on the airplane wreck in the harbor. I had not expected much but it was a good dive. Bill identified the plane as a C-46. Normans Cay was home to a drug smugglinging previously and yachters were discouraged here with rifles. The plane was a drug plane that went down in the mid 80's.

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Pic and this quote from - http://homepage.mac.com/denny_scott/2005/Cruise.html