Does airspeed come into play with vertical speed, in terms of who will reach the ground first? So let’s say there’s two aircraft, which are the same, and both are cruising at 28,000FT, the only difference is one plane is doing 260 knots and the other is doing 280 knots. If they both pitched down reaching a vertical speed of -15,000FT/Min at the same exact time, would the aircraft going 280 knots still hit the ground first despite sharing a vertical speed the entire time??
No, both would reach the ground at the same time, although the one with the higher airspeed would go farther before hitting the ground, assuming atmospheric conditions are invariant.

On the other hand, if both aircraft have the same flight path angle, the one with the higher airspeed would have a higher sink rate.