AN ELECTRICIAN who worked at Sellafield has been named as the extreme sports enthusiast who died in a paragliding crash.

Tributes have been paid to Mark Paterson, 38, whose body was found on Fleetwith Pike, near Buttermere.

Mr Paterson, who was also a joiner and had worked as a contractor at the nuclear site, had gone gliding in the Lake District but did not return home.

A search carried out for Mr Paterson by emergency services after he was reported missing ended in the tragic discovery.

Paying tribute to his older brother, Keith Paterson, 36, said: “I’m going to miss him like hell. He was a true legend.

“He was not just my brother, he was one of my best mates.”

Keith Paterson said his brother loved “any action that got his blood pumping”.

“He had a good load of friends from all the sports he did,” he added.

Mr Paterson leaves behind his partner, Rebecca Butler, and two-year-old son Dylan.

June Paterson paid tribute to her son, describing him as a caring father who had already taught her grandson to say the word “glider” and to point to the sky.

She said: “The little lad worshipped him. He was a good dad.”

Mr Paterson, who twice glided from the Yorkshire Dales to Hull, was a member of Cumbria Soaring Club.

He lived at Main Street, Haverigg.

He enjoyed kite-surfing, snowboarding, playing cricket and speed flying – a sport involving flying a small, fast fabric wing close to a steep slope.

Mr Paterson was an experienced and well-respected pilot which has left his family confused about what went wrong.

His father, Alan, said: “This is what we can’t grasp because he was so good at it.”

Police, Cockermouth and Keswick mountain rescue teams, an RAF helicopter and the National Police Air Service were called out at around 1.20am on Saturday morning after receiving reports that Mr Paterson was missing.

The helicopter crew spotted the missing paraglider at around 4.30am and a doctor with one of the search teams confirmed he was dead at 5am.

The former Millom School student had set off earlier in the day from near Loweswater.

Police are not treating his death as suspicious.

The coroner’s office and the Air Accident Investigation Branch have been informed.