It's an air cop as police quiz jumper who leapt from Crags

The airborne adventurer enjoyed a bird's eye view of Holyrood Palace, the Scottish Parliament and across the rooftops of the Old Town as he spent more than ten minutes soaring through the air above the royal park.

As traffic passed through the park below, he then began a rapid descent, after two royal park rangers set off up the Crags in a Land Rover in pursuit. He evaded the rangers on his trail as he reached the ground, near the bowling green behind the palace, but the police were not far behind.

After bundling up his parachute, the young flyer tried to make a sharp exit, but was arrested moments later when police caught up with him near the palace wall.

The next stop was St Leonards police station where he was held for questioning on suspicion of breaking civil aviation laws.

Security and other general safety concerns mean the city centre has a ban on low-flying, which covers anything below 1500ft, without the permission of the Civil Aviation Authority. The top of the Crags is about 400ft high. The bizarre spectacle took Kenneth MacKay, 54, a labourer from Dumbiedykes, by surprise as he enjoyed a break on a bench in the park.

"I heard a commotion and looked up to see him landing in the field. He apparently came off the highest point of the cliff, then came down," he said. "It's really dangerous, because there is a busy road there. With the palace and the parliament being there as well, I'm surprised he wasn't worried about being shot."

A friend of the flyer - believed to be a backpacker from South Africa - claimed the 23-year-old had been whisked into the air after slipping close to a peak at the east end of the Crags. He had been trying to carry out ground training, practising the control of his chute in the wind, when a gust of wind carried him away, he said.

Brett Harvey said his friend qualified for a paragliding licence in January and was staying in Edinburgh for several months as he travelled the UK.

"I wasn't too worried when he fell off the cliff because I know what a good paraglider he is," he said. "We were ground training on the cliff. We usually practise on the flat field at the bottom, but the wind wasn't right, so we decided to go up today. He was practising control, but then there was a gust of wind and he got sucked up over the cliff."

Historic Scotland rangers Judy Oates and Susan Ritchie were alerted by a member of the public who saw the paraglider take off from the cliff.

A spokeswoman for Historic Scotland said: "The rangers were in the office when someone radioed and relayed what had happened. With Holyrood Park being in such close proximity to both the parliament and palace, we do have careful security precautions.

"The rangers went to investigate and, identifying his approximate intended landing area, awaited at the scene for the police. The police are now dealing with this incident."

A police spokeswoman said: "We were informed someone was paragliding from the Crags. A man was detained and was taken to a local police station."

The last time someone tried to paraglide from the Crags was believed to be in the early 1990s. He was said to have crash-landed and suffered a broken leg.

The park is classified as a no-fly zone whenever the Royal Family are in residence at the palace.