We report on the measurement of the lifetimes of pions, kaons and muons in the secondary cosmic‐ray radiation by using a hybrid detector. The detector consists of a container filled with liquid scintillator that produces scintillation light when crossed by charged particles; this container is located atop a water tank that produces Cherenkov light when crossed by charged particles. Both containers have one phototube inside to detect the light produced. The electronics used consists of NIM modules, two digital oscilloscopes and one PC. This equipment is multipurpose and can be conventionally found in any modern physics laboratory. The results obtained for the muon, pion and kaon lifetimes are the following: &tgr;&mgr;=2.120±0.02 &mgr;s, &tgr;&pgr;=24.63±3 ns y &tgr;K= 12.52±2 ns in good agreement with the literature. © 2003 American Institute of Physics