GLENDALE – One of the most popular parts of the Super Bowl experience is what happens before the game, and that includes the activity in the skies above the venue.
The annual big game flyover is one of the final spectacles before the contest starts, and this year it will be historic. For the first time, an all-woman crew will take part in the Super Bowl LVII flyover at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona as the United States Navy celebrates 50 years of women flying for that branch of the armed forces.
As they make history, there will be two other members of the Navy who are from Chicago who will be part of the effort to pull off the flyover.
(Courtesy: United States Navy)
Lt. Slawomir Glownia of Electronic Attack Squadron 129 will be supporting the flyover on Sunday in Glendale, Arizona. He’ll be airborne near State Farm Stadium and will be ready to substitute for one of the planes should it have a technical issues before the flyover.
“One day I was in my office and my boss walks in and he asked me if I like football, and I was like ‘Of course,'” said Lt. Glownia when talking with WGN News Now ahead of Super Bowl LVII. “He asked me if I wanted to be a part of this flyover and I said ‘Of course, of course, I would.'”
A native of Chicago and a 2003 graduate of Steinmetz High School and enlisted in the Navy from the Six Corners recruiting district. He spent eight years in the service and then finished his degree at San Diego State University in 2013.
After two years of flight school in the Navy, he’s now an instructor pilot for Electronic Attack Squadron 129 out of Whidbey Island Naval Station in Washington.
“I want to represent my community, where I came from, my family, my friends, my co-workers,” said Lt. Glownia. “Then just being part of this team of these brilliant people who are here making this event happen.
“It’s a great privilege. It’s humbling to see all the work that goes into this along the way just to make it happen.”
Petty Officer 2nd Class Jedd Tabladillo of Chicago is also in Glendale for Super Bowl LVII as he will be one of the sailors helping to maintain the aircraft for Electronic Attack Squadron 129.
He grew up in Chicago and would later attend Streamwood High School, where he graduated in 2015.
Larry Hawley has more on both of these members of the Navy who’ll have a part in the Super Bowl LVII flyover from WGN News Now, which you can watch in the video above.
