Beachgoers were horrified to witness a 37-year-old man attacked and killed by a great white shark at one of Cape Town's most popular beaches.

Packed with sun seekers during peak summer season the scene appeared calm when Lloyd Skinner decided to enter the water on Tuesday afternoon, according to the Daily Mail.

Soon after and with little warning he was reportedly circled by a great white and fatally attacked 100 metres from the shore of Fish Hoek beach in the Western Cape.

Onlookers who noticed the rippling water surrounding Skinner waved their towels and yelled in vain as they watched his body disappear and his blood spread across the water's surface. Skinner's body has not been located.

A man watching from his holiday home overlooking the beach used Twitter to report the incident; 'Holy s***! We just saw a gigantic shark eat what looked like a person in front of our house! That shark was huge! Like dinosaur huge!'

'It was this giant shadow ... it sort of came out of the water and took this colourful lump and went off with it. You could see its whole jaw wrap around the thing - which turned out to be a person.' he continued.

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On holiday in South Africa to celebrate the wedding of his partner's daughter, Skinner was an engineer who managed mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo. His partner was reportedly at the beach with him.

According to reports a shark flag was not flying at the beach even though Disaster Management Services had issued a shark warning hours earlier.

Officials are searching for the great white responsible for the attack, only Skinner's goggles have reportedly been found. Because sharks are territorial animals, officials believe the predator is likely to return.