St. Mary's Preparatory Crew

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Pilot's passion couldn't help Monday night

Dec. 1, 1992

First Lt. Paul S. Ziemba's passion was hurtling through the air as fast as he could go.

If he couldn't do it in his beloved B-1B bomber, he preferred no plane at all. More than 600 times Ziemba had jumped from other airplanes. As he streaked toward the earth at more than 100 miles per hour, he laughed at the ground rushing up to meet him. After falling several thousand feet he would confidently pop his parachute and glide to the ground, landing effortlessly on his feet. Then he'd do it again.

Unfortunately, when his life was on the line, Ziemba didn't have a chance to use those well-honed, extracurricular skills.

Air Force officials said Ziemba and his three fellow B-1B bomber crewmen died instantly Monday night when their plane slammed

Ziemba
Lt. Paul Ziemba

into a mountain peak in far west Texas, apparently before they even recognized the danger and attempted to eject. Ziemba was listed as the pilot. Investigators will try to determine whether he or the aircraft commander Maj. Zenon Goc, was in control of the aircraft at the time of the crash, or whether both were relying on the plane's sophisticated "terrain following radar" and computers to fly the plane through the mountains in the darkness.

At 24 and the youngest member of the crew, Ziemba probably was the only crewman who'd ever actually parachuted from a plane. He'd become intrigued by the hobby three years ago and had graduated in 1990 as the outstanding member of the Air Force Academy's skydiving team.

A grieving Steve P. Ziemba of suburban Detroit, Mich., said Thursday he couldn't tell which excited his son more, flying the B-1B or skydiving.

"He loved that aircraft and he loved the people he flew with," he said. "When we visited him down there in September, he arranged for me to just sit in the cockpit with him. As he described it, it was easy to envision the thrill he felt in flying."

"All through his training he was talking about looking forward to putting into practice all that he'd trained for," Ziemba said. "If a job was scary, he'd say, 'Dad, I have a job to do' and he'd take it on 100 percent. He was extremely courageous and ready to accept any responsibility the Air Force would give him." Christine Farina, 24, assistant band director at Cooper High School, had been Ziemba's next-door neighbor since he moved here from Lubbock in May to begin his B-1B training. She was his neighbor until Sunday, that is. "He helped me move (into a duplex) Sunday, then we ate some pizza," she said Thursday. While they ate he showed her some maps of the area where he would be flying Monday night and described the exhilarating feeling of flying the B-1B at the speed of sound. "He'd get so excited," she said. "He loved what he was doing," and never let criticism of the B-1B bother him. "It was like he knew better," she added. Ziemba's father said he grew up in Orchard Lake, a suburb of Detroit, and attended St. Mary's Preparatory School, a Catholic high school, there. The father, vice president of a national merchandising company, has set up a college scholarship in the airman's name there.

Contributions may be sent to the Paul S. Ziemba Memorial Scholarship Endowment Fund, in care of St. Mary's Preparatory School, Orchard Lake, MI 48324. A memorial service for Ziemba will be held at Orchard Lake at 11 a.m. Monday with Ziemba's great-uncle, a Catholic priest, officiating, his father said. Interment will be in either Orchard Lake or at the Air Force Academy, he said.

Ziemba said his son excelled in every phase of his training. He was one of the first young Air Force officers picked for B-1B training who had not previously flown another military aircraft. After college graduation, he learned to fly T-38 jet trainers at Reese Air Force Base, Lubbock, then "graduated" to B-1B training here. When he wasn't flying or studying, he was skydiving, usually around Stanton, Farina said "I think he spent almost every weekend doing that."

Ziemba said his son had been fascinated with planes all his life.

"I noticed it when he was 6-years-old,"he said, his voice cracking. "I had him helping me rake leaves. But every time I'd turn around he'd be leaning on the rake and staring at the sky..."

He apologized for not being able to continue.

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