Copter crash in Iraq kills two with ties to Bay State

Chief Warrant Officer Kyran E. Kennedy, 43, the copilot, was a native of West Roxbury. Sergeant Scott C. Rose, 30, was also identified as being from Massachusetts. Both were part of a four-man crew assigned to the 101st Airborne Division based in Fort Campbell, Ky.

The cause of Friday's accident on the east side of the Tigris River had not been determined, George Heath, public affairs office at Fort Campbell, said yesterday.

US officials said they are evaluating flying patterns and procedures after the Tikrit crash, which may have been the result of enemy fire. Officers in Iraq were quoted as saying that the helicopter was probably hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. If true, Friday's crash would be the third helicopter to be knocked out of the sky by enemy fire in the past two weeks.

Kennedy, 43, lived with his wife, Kathleen, and his three children -- Christopher, 11, Kaitlyn, 9, and Kevin, 3 1/2 -- in Hopkinsville, Ky. He was the son of Kevin and Geraldine Kennedy of West Roxbury.

Kennedy's wife, the former Kathleen Barb, is a native of Saugus. He is the brother of the Rev. William Kennedy, a Boston priest and Navy chaplain on active duty.

A relative who asked not to be named said Kennedy was the fifth of 10 children. He enlisted in 1988 and was transferred to Fort Campbell in 2001.

"All of us are extremely proud of Kyran, and he died doing the job he was sent to do," the Kennedy family said in a statement released yesterday. "We love him, and he will be dearly missed."

A friend of the family, the Rev. Chris Coyne, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston, said Kennedy grew up in St. Theresa of Avila Parish in West Roxbury, where he was an altar boy. He attended Xaverian Brothers High School, where he graduated in 1978. He went on to the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

Rose, who was believed to have been the door gunner on the helicopter, enlisted in the Army in 1997 and was transferred to Fort Campbell that same year. He is the son of Alfred, an Army veteran, and Karen Rose, of Fayetteville, N.C.

Rose leaves his wife, Michele, a native of Vermont. Heath said he was unable to identify Rose's hometown in Massachusetts. Relatives of Rose, reached by phone at their home in Kentucky, declined to comment.

Bedford resident John Hart, 20, and Wakefield native Joseph P. Bellavia, 28, were the last two Massachusetts soldiers who died in combat in Iraq in October.

As word of these latest American casualties reached Massachusetts yesterday, family and friends gathered in Waterbury, Conn., for the funeral Mass for Private Anthony D'Agostino, one of the 16 American soldiers killed after a CH-47 Chinook helicopter was shot down over Iraq last Sunday.

D'Agostino, who was remembered as being motivated to join the service following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, was a communications specialist attached to the 16th Signal Brigade at Fort Hood, Texas. He was the sixth soldier from Connecticut to die in Iraq.

The service at Immaculate Conception Church concluded with the audience standing with their hands over their hearts, singing "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Corey Dade can be reached at dade@globe.com.