Downed helicopter pilot in Iraq was brother of Boston priest

Published: 2003-11-13

BOSTON (CNS) -- Chief Warrant Officer Kyran Kennedy, a native of Massachusetts and a brother of Boston archdiocesan priest Father William Kennedy, was killed in Iraq Nov. 7 when the Army Black Hawk helicopter he was piloting crashed on the banks of the Tigris River near Tikrit. The cause of the crash was still under investigation, but Iraqi insurgents are suspected of shooting down the helicopter. Five others on board were also killed. Kyran Kennedy, 43, the fifth of Kevin and Geraldine "Gerry" Kennedy's 10 children, grew up in Boston's West Roxbury neighborhood and was an altar boy at St. Theresa of Avila Parish there. He went on to graduate from Xaverian High School in Westwood in 1978 and attend college at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. He enlisted in the Army in 1989 and became a member of the 5th Combat Aviation Battalion of the 101st Airborne Division stationed at Fort Campell, Ky. He was deployed to Iraq in February. "All of us are extremely proud of Kyran, and he died doing the job he was sent to do," his family said in a statement released after his death. "We love him and he will be dearly missed."

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