CLEVELAND, Ohio – The Cleveland natives played two roles in the pre-game for Super Bowl 55.
Suzie Dorner, a student at Revere and a nursing manager at ICU COVID-19 at Tampa General Hospital, tossed the coin before the kickoff. Captain Sarah Kociuba, also a native of Cleveland and a graduate of the University of Dayton, commanded the overflight after the national anthem.
Kociuba flew the stealth bomber B-2 to the overpass and is only one of the 10 pilots of the aircraft in the country. Joining her on the flight were a B-1 Lancer and a B-52 Stratofortress. Together, the numbers add up to 55, corresponding to this year’s Super Bowl number.
She took off on her flight at the Super Bowl at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, and connected with the other two planes over the Gulf of Mexico. From there, they flew towards the stadium in a synchronized formation over a restricted air space before returning to their bases. This means that Kociuba will not be able to watch most, if not all, of the game live.
“I am very excited and humble to be chosen to lead this training. I would say those are probably the two words that come to mind, ”Kociuba told Marie Claire’s Megan DiTrolio on Saturday. “There will be two pilot pilots flying on this mission; I will be leading not only the B-2, but the entire bomber formation, the B-1 and the B-52. I’m a huge football fan. I love watching football – I’m upset that I can’t watch the game live! “
She told Ditrolio that when she was 11, her father took her to the Rose Bowl parade when she saw the B-2 that she ended up flying to the Super Bowl on Sunday night. While in Dayton, she decided after her first semester to join Air Force ROTC while working to become a pilot.
In her career, she has flown more than 90 combat missions and has more than 1,700 flight hours before Sunday night’s overflight. Kociuba is also a B-2 instructor.
Kociuba is the first woman to lead a Super Bowl flyby, according to Airways magazine. This was also the first time that there was a triple flyby in a Super Bowl with three different planes in formation.
Although the flyby seems simple, it requires a lot of technical planning and instructions.
“We have been working for weeks to make this plan very accurate so that we can carry it out,” Kociuba told FOX 13 in Tampa Bay. “So, let’s all inform and plan together and make this meeting happen.”
Kociuba graduated from North Royalton High School in 2009.