UMBERTO NOBILE: #2

Umberto Nobile (1885-1978)
Italian aircraft designer, pilot, Arctic Explorer

Umberto Nobile lead two flights over the North Pole, one in 1926 in the airship Norge and another in 1928 in the airship Italia.. In addition to his crew, his companions on the first flight were: Roald Amundsen a Norwegian and the first person to achieve the South Pole. The second was Lincoln Ellsworth, a wealthy American and the first person to fly across the Antarctic continent. Ellsworth also financed the flight.
After the Norge flight across the Arctic and the North Pole, disputes arose between Nobile, Amundsen and Ellsworth as to their roles in the expedition. Nobile, who served as pilot on the Norge flight, wanted to repeat the venture making it an all-Italian flight to the Pole. He planned to fly east from Spitzbergen to chart the lands north of Russia, as well as mooring the airship at the Pole for three weeks. On May 15, the first part of the journey was carried out, but weather conditions grew worse. Ice forming on the dirigible slowed the Italia and forced it to fly low through the fog. They calculated they were 180 miles from Spitzbergen. Suddenly the airship crashed to the hard ice below. The Italia carried a crew of 16. At the time of the crash, nine crewmembers, including Nobile, were in the main cabin gondola and were thrust on to the ice. One additional crewmember was in the rear engine gondola and was also thrown to the ice. He was found dead. Six other crewmembers were inside the envelope, That section shot up and away and disappeared. Their remains were never found.

A number of supplies, including a radio and a tent were thrown to the ice. The radio eventually allowed Nobile to establish contact with the outside world. The survivors used a red dye to paint red stripes on the tent to make it more visible from the air. The site became known in the press as the Red Tent.

The Italia crash created a massive search and rescue operation, the first in the far north. Roald Amundsen, hearing of Nobile’s predicament, put aside their disputes and flew by plane to lend his experience to the rescue efforts. His plane crashed while traveling from Norway to Spitsbergen. The great explorer was never seen again. Nobile and his group of survivors were ultimately rescued from the ice. . Nobile was promoted from Colonel to General in the Italian air force following the success of the Norge flight and then forced to resign following the Italia disaster. He spent five years in Russia in the 1930s developing Soviet airships. He lived in the US for several years during WW II and returned to Italy in 1944 where he died in 1978 at age 92