At the end of 1927, after much insistence, Nobile gained permission to use this airship for a new scientific expedition to the North Pole under the aegis of the Italian Geographical Society.

With 20 personnel on board, and a payload of 17,000 pounds (7,700 kg) of fuel and supplies, the initial journey to Stolp in Germany took 30 hours through a variety of bad weather conditions.

Takeoff from Stolp was further delayed by bad weather, but Italia set off for Norway at 03:28 on 3 May 1928; eight hours later, escorted by Swedish naval planes, she passed over Stockholm.

While the airship was moored without difficulty, blizzard conditions and heavy rain kept the crew in a state of constant anxiety but caused only minor structural damage.

As soon as the weather permitted, Italia took off for Ny-Ålesund (Kings Bay) at 20:34 on 5 May, and by 05:30 the following day, had passed the meteorological station on Bear Island, but ran into high winds shortly afterwards, also suffering an engine failure.

By 12:00 on 6 May, Italia had reached Kings Bay where the support ship Città di Milano was anchored under the command of Captain Giuseppe Romagna Manoja.

Italia was forced to turn back eight hours into the flight because of thick ice forming on the envelope, as well as fraying of the control cables due to the extreme conditions.

Valuable meteorological, magnetic, and geographic data were gathered in a 2,500-mile (4,000 km) flight to the hitherto uncharted Nicholas II Land and back.

[6] The third flight started on the morning of 23 May; following a route along the Greenland coast, with the assistance of strong tailwinds, Italia reached the North Pole nineteen hours later, at 00:24, on 24 May.

Nobile had prepared a winch, an inflatable raft, and survival packs (which turned out to be providential) with the intention of lowering some of the scientists onto the ice, but the wind made this task impossible.

Instead, they circled the pole, making observations, and at 01:20, they dropped onto the ice the Italian and Milanese colours, as well as a wooden cross presented by Pope Pius XI and a religious medal from the citizens of Forlì, during a short ceremony.

Dr Běhounek, who was in charge of the compass, started to report variations in course of up to 30 degrees, and the elevator man Cecioni had similar problems maintaining control.

By 07:30 on 25 May, Nobile, who had been awake for over 48 hours, knew that the situation was critical and Giuseppe Biagi, the wireless operator, sent a message stating if he did not answer a call, there would be a good reason.

After two engines were restarted, the ship descended to 1,000 feet (300 metres) with no apparent ill effect, with the headwind appearing to decrease slightly allowing an airspeed of 30 mph.

Suddenly relieved of the weight of the gondola, the envelope of the ship began to rise, with a gaping tear in the keel and part of one cabin wall still attached.

Chief engine mechanic Ettore Arduino, with remarkable presence of mind, started throwing anything he could lay his hands on down to the men on the ice as he drifted slowly away with the envelope.

Viglieri and Mariano, standing next to the chart table, briefly saw the rear engine car about to strike the ice hard and then found themselves prostrate, but unharmed, in a mass of debris.

Finally, the crowded tent was dyed with red strips for improved visibility from the air, using dye marker bombs that had been on board the airship.

On 29 May, Malmgren shot a curious polar bear that had wandered to the crash site, augmenting the food supply with about 180 kilograms (400 lb) of fresh meat.

Roald Amundsen was lost and presumed dead after the French Latham sea plane piloted by René Guilbaud, in which he was flying to join the rescue operation, disappeared en route to Spitsbergen.

The main causes were the severe Arctic climate and the decision to return to base in Spitsbergen in the midst of a worsening gale, rather than to continue across the Pole and attempt a landing in Canada.

Felice Trojani, one of the airship engineers, reported in his book that in the years after the crash, he examined eleven different possible causes in detail without coming to any real solution.

[23] Nobile's failure (or refusal) to choose a second-in-command was the primary reason for his sleep deprivation and may have directly led to the crash of the Italia.

On 13 August 2018, a team of researchers with the PolarQuest2018 expedition reached the GPS coordinates of the first SOS message radioed by Giuseppe Biagi from the Red Tent and were aided by the fact that global climate change has greatly reduced the area of the North Atlantic Ocean that is typically covered by ice.