This is the moment a luxury £120,000 Range Rover slowly submerged beneath the rising tide after the owner attempted to tow his friend's van to safety after it became stuck on the beach.

The red-faced driver found himself in the same predicament as the owner of the van, whose vehicle was also entrenched in the sand on Scarborough beach in North Yorkshire.

Crowds gathered as the high-performance Range Rover SVR - boasting 567 BHP - attempted to drag the stranded Transit van out of the sea.

At one point, the hapless pair even tried digging out the vehicles with a plastic spade.

But after multiple failed attempts, the 4x4 - which even has a sand driving mode - became lodged during the incident on Friday, just after 6pm. 

Footage of the incident shows the Range Rover driver attempting to push his car from behind as a second person revs the engine from behind the wheel. 

But despite their attempt, the SUV did not move any further and instead caused a mass of sandy water to spray up into the air and over the hapless owner.

A blue jet ski can be seen in the water close to the vehicles. According to bystanders, the van had originally reversed onto the beach to collect the jet ski when it became stuck. 

Baffled onlookers watched as the men rejected help from locals before both vehicles were eventually completely submerged.

By nightfall, only an aerial mounted on top of the van could be seen sticking out of the water.

Eyewitness Sammy Hellewell, 39, filmed the bungled rescue attempt.

The mum-of-one, from Rotherham, said: 'We were heading to a local restaurant on the corner of that area and we saw them having difficulties with the van.

'One of the guys was trying to dig the front wheels out with a spade.

'Then the Range Rover came on with the idea to pull the van out. Which obviously didn't go very well.

'Some local people did go down and give them some advice to try and use the jet skis to get it out the sand, but they were quite rude to him and give him the impression that they knew what they were doing and told them to leave them alone.

'They had the jet skis attached to the van to begin with which definitely didn't help with the towing.

'It was absolutely stupid, that's why I recorded it.

'I filmed it for my father-in-law, I thought he would find it hilarious with how silly they were being trying to get these cars free.

'The driver has clearly reversed it in for the jet ski and got stuck.

'The Range Rover was fully mobile and then the back wheels started to sink while they weren't paying attention. I think they were a group together.

'They got both jet skis off the beach, but lost both vehicles.

'At points they were trying to lift the front of the van. 

'By the end they were fully submerged. We left the scene after a couple of hours.

'The last time we headed off home at 10.30pm the evening they were completely submerged, you could just see the aerial of the van sticking out the water.

'We were chatting to some rescue workers and they said they were waiting for low tide and each vehicle would be towed out.

'They said the insurance would be void and they said they would be billing the parties involved.'

Both vehicles were eventually hauled out off the beach by diggers, but were unlikely to be in a fit state to be driven anywhere.