A driver and his passenger escaped relatively unharmed after their car plunged 100 meters off the cliff onto the rocks below on the seaside of the notorious Chapman’s Peak Drive, in the Western Cape.
The incident took place on Sunday, just after 9am at the Noordhoek side of the peak. The road was temporarily closed, but reopened after a few hours.
Crash
Western Cape emergency medical services said attended to the scene.
Emergency services said the vehicle allegedly veered off the road before crashing onto rocks below.
Video footage circulating on social media showed the car mangled on the rocks, while a man can be seen making his way out of the vehicle.
One patient was rescued from the vehicle and taken to a nearby hospital, while a second person was treated at the scene.
Noordhoek side of Chapmans Peak, Cape Town… pic.twitter.com/Fyfi8FfVJf
— Yusuf Abramjee (@Abramjee) January 25, 2026
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Chapmans Peak
Chapman’s Peak has been the scene of various accidents over the years.
In April 2021, a cyclist had a lucky escape when he was rescued after he crashed and fell 30m off Chapman’s Peak Drive
Johan Marais, from Wilderness Search and Rescue (WSAR), said at the time that paramedics stabilised the cyclist after a rescue helicopter lifted him out and took him to a waiting ambulance.
In March of the same year, a woman was killed, and the man she was travelling with was critically injured when their vehicle plunged 200m off Chapman’s Peak.
A rescue mission is currently underway to free one person trapped in a car that drove off the Noordhoek side of Chapman’s Peak Drive, and plunged about 100 metres onto the rocks in Cape Town on Sunday.https://t.co/0vy2hytKLO https://t.co/wBBK97PJ6v pic.twitter.com/N5rjcWTDqJ
— Gina (@ginnydmm) January 25, 2026
‘Hands off the wheel’
In 1988, Christopher White survived after his Mercedes-Benz plummeted 30 stories onto the jagged rocks below at Chapman’s Peak
Thirty years later, Mercedes-Benz put White into an S-Class through Chapman’s Peak and asked him to take his hands off the wheel.
Rock fall
In 2022, Chapman’s Peak was closed after a rockfall between Noordhoek and Hout Bay in Cape Town.
The rockfall came after a strong cold front made landfall in Cape Town, with the South African Weather Service (Saws) warning residents of icy conditions sweeping over the province for the rest of the week.
Adverse weather conditions brought strong winds and heavy downpours across most of the province.
Chapman’s Peak is a mountain on the western side of the Cape Peninsula, famous for Chapman’s Peak Drive, widely considered one of the most spectacular marine drives in the world.
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