The hybrid-powered Mizan-4 touched down at Salalah airport at 05:46 on Saturday, ending a 7-hour, 46-minute run from Muscat that its operator, Sahm Aeroworks, calls a regional record. The 214kg (472lb) load included date syrup, spare pump parts and chilled seafood. The company says no person was aboard and that the aircraft completed the route without stopping.
But the flight’s strangest stretch came over Al Wusta, the sparsely settled central governorate bordering the Empty Quarter. Public radar showed the aircraft’s signal disappear for 29 minutes, while three drivers on a desert road separately reported a green-white light hanging low in the sky. Sahm says the plane stayed on course; it has not explained the light.
A light over Al Wusta
Marta Anjos, Sahm’s flight operations director, said the company’s onboard recording showed the aircraft maintaining altitude at 2,800 metres (9,200 feet) during the radar gap. “We saw a clean flight on our own instruments, then a blank in the public feed. The light is not something we can account for,” she said. The company has given the recording to the Omani Civil Flight Office.
Lucas Rico, an atmospheric physicist at the fictional Gulf Weather Institute, said dust, ice crystals or a distant aircraft could create an apparent hovering glow, while radio coverage can falter across remote desert terrain. “Those are possibilities, not an explanation of this particular sighting,” he said. Phone footage supplied by two drivers shows a small luminous point, but offers no reliable way to judge its distance or source.
The flight broke Sahm’s previous company distance mark of 503km (312 miles), set in March, and carried nearly twice that trial’s freight. No regional record-keeping body has verified the new claim. The Omani Civil Flight Office said it was checking route telemetry and aircraft logs before deciding whether the journey qualifies as a commercial unmanned-flight record.
A record with buyers waiting
Sahm says three logistics firms have signed conditional contracts worth 18.6 million Omani rials (about €43.8 million), dependent on regulatory approval and repeat flights. The startup, which employs 86 people in Muscat and Salalah, argues that long-range unmanned aircraft could move urgent goods between Oman’s coastal cities without adding another overnight truck journey.
Paola Lovren, a regional transport analyst at Meridian Gate Advisory, said the record could help the company win customers but would not settle questions about reliability. “A single spectacular run is a sales pitch. Buyers will want months of safe, repeatable service, especially when chilled cargo is involved,” she said. Sahm has not disclosed the price of the aircraft or how much each flight costs.
The civil flight office said the aircraft had the necessary test clearance, but it has not approved routine cargo operations. Its review will include the 29-minute radar gap and the drivers’ reports; Sahm says it will not schedule another long-distance trial until it receives guidance. The company expects an initial finding by 20 October.
For now, the aircraft has made it to Salalah, its cargo was delivered, and an unexplained glow has become part of the pitch. Sahm says it plans to publish more flight data before seeking a larger contract. The record may prove valuable; the unanswered question over Al Wusta is already drawing attention from potential customers and aviation officials.
