By Marty Mayfield
KRTN Multi-Media
According to reports from Union County a small airplane was reported to have crashed on Sierra Grande Mountain just south of Des Moines sometime during the night of August 13, 2025.
The NTSB has listed the crash of a Beechcraft M35 Bonanza to have happened on August 13, 2025. The NTSB has not issued a report as of press time but are taking the lead in the investigation along with the FAA.
New Mexico State Police noted that on Thursday, August 14, at about 9:40 a.m. NMSP were called about a missing/overdue aircraft that departed from Pueblo, CO and was headed to Uvalde, TX. The calling party reported that the flight’s last know ping was in the area of Sierra Grande Mountain, south of Des Moines. According to Flightaware, an aircraft tracking service, the plane was last seen at 11:00 p.m. August 13, 2025 near Sierra Grande Mountain.
The flight plan brought the airplane down from Pueblo over the Johnson Mesa and the Folsom Capulin area and on southeast near Sierra Grande. Due to the terrain in the flight path the airplane should have remained above 9000 feet altitude. Sierra Grande Mountain peak is at 8720 feet.
The New Mexico State Police, Search and Rescue team was activated and with the help of the Civil Air Patrol, a plane was spotted on the northwest side of Sierra Grande Mountain and the tail number confirmed that it was the missing airplane. Rescue teams reached the scene of the crash around 4:17 p.m. on Thursday where an extensive debris field was found covering a couple hundred feet. The aircraft was located in a heavy wooded area near the top of the tree line on Sierra Grande on the northwest side of the mountain.
The two occupants of the crash were found deceased. The pilot of the airplane was identified as Doug Hoverter of Frederick Colorado, who was an aircraft incident investigator with several years of experience flying many different types of airplanes and was a licensed commercial pilot. The name of the second victim has not yet been released by investigators.
