He is primarily remembered for designing and piloting the airship Norge, which may have been the first aircraft to reach the North Pole, and which was indisputably the first to fly across the polar ice cap from Europe to America.

Nobile also designed and flew the Italia, a second polar airship; this second expedition ended in a deadly crash and provoked an international rescue effort.

His father Vincenzo, a civil servant, belonged to the cadet branch of an aristocratic family that had been stripped of its titles after the Italian unification over their continuing loyalty to the deposed Bourbons, and which had adopted the Nobile surname for that reason.

[2] He also lectured at the University of Naples, obtained his test pilot's license and wrote the textbook Elementi di Aerodinamica (Elements of Aerodynamics).

In February 1922 the hydrogen-fueled Roma crashed and exploded in Norfolk, Virginia, after hitting high-tension power lines, killing 34 in what was the worst aviation disaster in the United States at the time.

He would travel himself to Japan in January 1927 to supervise the assembly of the N-3 airship, which had been sold to the Japanese Imperial Navy, and personally took part in several test flights.

[2][4] Nobile later claimed that during this time he faced professional hostility from some high-profile members of the Air Force establishment, including Italo Balbo, who had some of the best workers of the Military Factory dismissed on suspicion of being anti-fascists, obstructed plans for a Rome-Rio de Janeiro flight, and held back support for polar expeditions.

[5] In late 1925 Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen sought out Nobile to collaborate on a flight to the North Pole – still at that time an unreached goal for aviators – using an airship.

[7] The controversy was exacerbated by Mussolini's Fascist government, which trumpeted the genius of Italian engineering and exploration; Nobile was ordered to make a speaking tour of the U.S., further alienating Amundsen and the Norwegians.

Despite the controversy, Nobile continued to maintain good relations with other polar scientists, and he started planning a new expedition, this time fully under Italian control.

Part of the difficulty was in raising private funding to cover the costs of the expedition, which finally was financed by the city of Milan; the Italian government limited its direct participation to providing the airship and sending the aging steamer Città di Milano as a support vessel to Svalbard, under the command of Giuseppe Romagna.

[9] The crew managed to salvage several items from the crashed airship gondola, including a radio transceiver, a tent which they later painted red for maximum visibility, and, critically, boxes of food and survival equipment which quick-witted engineer Ettore Arduino had managed to throw onto the ice before he and his five companions were carried off to their deaths by the wrecked but still airborne airship envelope and keel.

[8] A few days after the crash the Swedish meteorologist Finn Malmgren and Nobile's second and third in command Mariano and Zappi decided to leave the immobile group and march towards land.

Malmgren, who was injured, weakened and reportedly still depressed over his meteorological advice that he felt contributed to the crash, asked his two Italian companions to continue without him.

In the wake of the crash, a collection of nations, including the Soviet Union, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Italy, launched the first polar air and sea rescue effort.

Nobile had prepared a detailed evacuation plan, with the most seriously wounded man (the heavy built mechanic Cecioni) at the top of the list and himself as number 4, with the navigator (Viglieri) and the radio operator (Biagi) as respectively no.

The official inquiry and the embarrassment over the crash gave Nobile's enemies the chance they were looking for: blame for the disaster was placed on his shoulders, and he was accused of abandoning his men on the ice – charges he would spend the rest of his life trying to dispel.

He continued giving interviews and writing books and articles until his death, without managing to fully sway public opinion and some military experts of his version of the events of his polar expeditions.

In 1959 he remarried with Gertrude Stolp, a German woman whom he had met in Spain in 1943[2] and who later became chief librarian at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.