Italia (airship)

Built to almost the same design as Norge, Italia carried Umberto Nobile back to the Arctic on an expedition of his own, and its story is the dark other half of the polar airship era. Italia reached the North Pole on May 24, 1928, then crashed onto the ice on the way back the next day. The gondola tore away, leaving survivors on the floe, while six men were carried off with the drifting envelope and never found. The rescue became an international drama: Roald Amundsen disappeared in a flying boat while joining the search, and the Soviet icebreaker Krasin picked up the last five survivors on July 12. Read it alongside Norge to see how quickly triumph turned to tragedy.