According to the 1910 Italian law for the strengthening of the aeronautics the construction of 9 airships was ordered by the army, including three small, five medium and one large aircraft.

In October 1913, while the airship still wasn't finished, frigate captain Guido Scelsi, the head of the Royal Navy's aeronautical department, was appointed its commander with lieutenant Bruno Brivonesi as his first officer.

Flying in an attitude of 2700 meters the crew was blinded by the intense light and after an attempt to locate the military targets without visual contact, dropped the bombs and started to turn giving itself on retreat.

While the nacelle and the back of the airship were destroyed during the impact, the forward envelope, still full of gas, remained raised high up from the water level.

Captain Brivonesi and his men, including Raffaele de Courten, later Italian minister of navy, who survived the crash unharmed, then tried to sink remaining parts of the ship, but weren't successful and later on were recovered and taken prisoners of war by an Austro-Hungarian military vessel.