We have a mystery here. Thunderball was the James Bond movie best known for its underwater scenes, but the IMDb does not list Cozumel as one of the many shooting locations for Thunderball. Yet, Cozumel has a "Thunderball Reef" and a "sunken plane" which is apparently not the Vulcan bomber used in Thunderball, but a different plane used in a Mexican disaster film. Anyone else?
This just in: An image search revealed that the sunken airplane in Cozumel is a passenger plane. The sunken bomber and reef scenery for Thunderball was filmed in Nassau. Since the RAF would no more have donated a Vulcan to be sunk for a movie than the USAF would have donated a B-52, it was no surprise that a mock-up was used for the Vulcan, and its framework is still there. The question presupposes that one of the James Bond movies had underwater scenes filmed at Cozumel; a world-class destination for scuba divers and snorkelers. Is it not possible that the reef reminded them of the movie Thunderball, complete with a sunken aircraft from a different move? Over the years, such a nickname could have sparked the belief that a James Bond movie was filmed there. Such misconceptions have happened before.