The Salt Lake City Council observed a moment of silence Tuesday night in honor of Dylan Hopkins, a city firefighter killed in a plane crash Nov. 21.

Hopkins, 25, was traveling to Colorado Springs with fellow firefighters Craig Weaver and Bryon Meyer for a weekend trip when the plane went down in the Uinta Mountains near the town of Hanna, in Duchesne County.

"It's a great loss," said Jill Remington Love, the council's chairwoman.

Hopkins was part of the city's heavy rescue team at station No. 5, 1023 E. 900 South. The elite group of firefighters — including Meyer and Weaver — specializes in low-frequency but high-risk operations, such as rope rescues, confined-space and trench-collapse rescues, and heavy-machinery entanglement and extrication.

Hopkins had worked for Salt Lake City for five years. He also was a member of the FEMA urban search and rescue.

Federal aviation investigators are looking into what caused the single-engine Cessna 172 to crash.

Weaver and Meyer are recovering from their injuries, city officials said.

— Jared Page