In 2017, Jordan sank a 100-foot C-130 Hercules cargo plane off Aqaba; marine life has been colonizing it ever since

Sinking a military cargo plane on purpose might sound like something out of an action movie, but that is exactly what happened off the coast of Aqaba, Jordan, in November 2017. A retired Royal Jordanian Air Force C-130 Hercules, once used to move troops and supplies, was towed out to sea and intentionally sunk to create an artificial reef. The study, ‘Fish Colonization of an Artificial Reef in the Gulf of Elat, Northern Red Sea,’ published in Environmental Biology of Fishes, tracked a different artificial reef roughly 25 kilometers away in the Gulf of Elat (Eilat), on the same gulf where Aqaba sits, and recorded 94 fish species over a period of 728 days. That is the kind of change this sunken plane was meant to create.

A war plane's second life underwater

The C-130 is not a small object to drop into the ocean. According to U.S. Air Force specifications, it measures about 98 feet long, with a wingspan of roughly 133 feet. Before placing the plane in the water, officials ensured that the fuel, oil, and any other hazardous items were removed from the plane. Then, with press and local officials watching from shore, the plane was lowered some 300 meters offshore, where it came to rest on the bottom at a depth of about 17 meters. The depth is shallow enough for recreational divers, not just technical wreck specialists, to dive through the cargo hold. This is not an isolated attempt. Because Aqaba has limited natural coral reef, Jordan has used a strategy seen elsewhere in the Red Sea: sinking decommissioned military hardware such as tanks, planes, and armored vehicles to create underwater habitats.

What the science actually says about reefs like this one

Marine ecologists have studied similar artificial reefs across the region, and some of the same patterns appear repeatedly. Research titled ‘Benthic community succession on artificial and natural coral reefs in the northern Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea’ published in PLOS ONE compared artificial and natural reefs in the northern Gulf of Aqaba and found that artificial structures can increase coral coverage and biomass of invertebrates, especially in shaded areas on the structure. In the case of an aircraft like the C-130, that would mean places like under a wing or inside the fuselage, tucked-away nooks and crannies that act as nurseries for smaller and more vulnerable species.

Another study titled ‘Coral colonization and fish assemblage on an artificial reef off Hurghada, Red Sea, Egypt’ tracked one artificial reef site farther along the coast between 2001 and 2010. Over that period, fish diversity on the reef climbed from 14 to 112 species, while the number of individual fish grew from 120 to more than 17,000. The pace of that growth is a useful reminder of how quickly marine life can colonize a new artificial structure once it's in the water.

Why marine life shows up so fast

The short answer would be habitat. Bare patches of sandy seabed provide little in terms of protection, nesting spots, or even a surface to hunt for food. But toss a hundred-foot-long metal structure down to the same area, and suddenly there are tiny spots, shaded areas, and even hard surfaces on which algae and coral can attach themselves. Divers exploring the C-130 wreck at Aqaba report finding moray eels tucked among the wreckage, lionfish hovering near the wings, schools of glassfish swimming through the old cockpit, with groupers and snapper patrolling the open water just beyond.

A storm changed the wreck again

The C-130 did not stay pristine forever, and that is part of its story now. In March 2020, a storm hit the Gulf of Aqaba and tore the aluminum fuselage apart. The plane is no longer whole; it has broken into pieces, with the tail separated from the cockpit. Some longtime visitors say the damage added personality to the wreck, giving it the look of a shipwreck rather than an aircraft. For readers who have only seen a C-130 in old war footage, this underwater transformation is a striking part of the wreck's history. A machine built to move troops and cargo now sits at the bottom of the Gulf of Aqaba doing something else entirely: hosting the moray eels, lionfish, and coral colonies that have moved in since 2017.