A dramatic rescue operation was launched late Friday night after a Stinson Beach couple returning from a three-week vacation in Europe drove off a cliff just south of town and crashed into a rocky outcropping along the ocean. Just before midnight, Dan Fruchtman was driving along the highway with his wife Teri after about a 24-hour series of flights from Istanbul to California and a late meal at Marin Joe’s. Mr. Fruchtman didn’t feel tired, he said. “I felt great. I just recall looking at my wife and she was asleep, and the next moment I was tumbling; I was fully conscious tumbling down the mountain.” He called 911, and the California Highway Patrol dispatched a helicopter to the scene, and the Marin County Sheriff’s Office, the C.H.P. and the county Fire Department sent crews to search for the vehicle. The helicopter spotted the couple around 12:30 a.m. on Saturday, the C.H.P. said in a statement. The pilot, Chris Omalza, landed the helicopter in southern Stinson about 100 yards from the crash, and a rescue crew extricated the two as waves crashed on the responders and the tide rose. “They had their act together; they were very professional. I wouldn’t be alive without them,” Mr. Fruchtman said. “Fifteen more minutes and we would have been under water. We were already being lapped.” Though most of the car was destroyed, the couple was not crushed, though Mr. Fruchtman said they sustained some broken bones and concussions.  Crews carried Mr. Fruchtman, the driver, to a helicopter and Ms. Fruchtman to a REACH air ambulance after which both were taken to a Bay Area hospital. He was released on Sunday. Ms. Fruchtman is still in the hospital, he said. “But we’re alive. She’s breathing on her own for the first time, and she’s responding.”