A Whitehorse paraglider caused an area power outage Saturday after getting tangled up in power lines along the North Klondike Highway.

Sean Kitchen hung from the wires for roughly an hour after cruising into them at around 4:30 p.m.

"I'm lucky to be alive,” Kitchen said in an interview this morning.

He and four other flyers had hiked to the top of Vista Road on Saturday afternoon, planning to glide to a familiar landing spot.

"Everything was fine; it was a routine ‘sled ride' from top to bottom,” he told the Star.

Soon after launching, Kitchen spotted the "silver glint” of the power lines as he approached the highway.

"The sun was really low in the horizon.... I thought I saw them all, not realizing that the lines in front of me were shadowed — I didn't see them at all,” he said.

It wasn't until he had passed between two lines that he realized he would become entangled. A power line stretched just inches below his feet as his glider continued to fly overhead.

"Then it was a matter of controlling the glider” to avoid "the big zap.”

If Kitchen had come into contact with a wire while his glider lines were touching a separate wire, his body could have become the conductor for a potentially fatal low-voltage electrical current, fire officials said.

The weight on the wires "popped the fuse at the main pole,” causing outages in residences throughout the area, Dan Nickason, chief of the Hootalinqua Fire Department, told the Star this morning.

Volunteer department members cut Kitchen down after Yukon Energy employees determined it was safe.

Kitchen was president of the Association of Yukon Paragliders and Hang Gliders until he stepped down earlier this year.

He has been paragliding for 10 years and has made nearly 1,000 flights.

Kitchen said his glider suffered "minor damage,” but he will be back flying "whenever the weather looks good again.”