2-492-378 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Umberto Nobile's hangar, base of the airship 'Italia', Kongsfjorden, Spitzbergen, Norway, 1929. Umberto Nobile (1885-1978) was an Italian aeronaut and Arctic explorer. He designed the airship 'Norge' in which he became possibly the first man to fly to the North Pole and certainly the first to fly over the Arctic polar ice cap from Europe to America, a feat he accomplished in May 1926. He built a second airship, the 'Italia', in which he returned to the North Pole in May 1928. The airship crashed in bad weather on the return journey to Spitzbergen, prompting an international rescue operation to search for Nobile and his crew. Of the 16 men on board, Nobile and 5 others were rescued, but the famous Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen lost his life in a plane crash during the search.