‘Journey of a lifetime’ ends with Pol Pot victim jailed after air rage incident

A victim of the Pol Pot dictatorship in Cambodia this week saw his “journey of a lifetime” — to see his family after 35 years — end in heartbreak as he instead woke up in a prison cell in Shannon.

At Ennis District Court yesterday, 55-year-old Som Chanh made his second court appearance concerning his pleading guilty to three air rage-related offences that forced an Air Transat flight to divert to Shannon on Monday.

Chanh was one of 235 passengers onboard the Paris-Montreal flight and was making the journey to see his mother and four siblings whom he had not seen in 35 years, since he was flown to France as a refugee from Cambodia in 1977.