The Norge was a semi-rigid Italian-built airship that carried out the first verified trip of any kind to the North Pole and likely the first verified overflight on 12 May 1926. It was also the first aircraft to fly over the polar ice cap between Europe and America. The expedition was the brainchild of polar explorer and expedition leader Roald Amundsen, the airship's designer and pilot Umberto Nobile and American explorer Lincoln Ellsworth, who along with the Aero Club of Norway, financed the trip which was known as the Amundsen-Ellsworth 1926 Transpolar Flight.
The expedition then crossed the Barents Sea to reach King's Bay at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard. There Nobile met Richard Evelyn Byrd preparing his Fokker Trimotor for his North Pole attempt. Nobile explained the Norge trip was to observe the uncharted sea between the Pole and Alaska where some thought land was; at the time he believed Robert Edwin Peary had already reached the pole. This would be the last stop before crossing the pole. The airship left Ny-Ålesund for the final stretch across the polar ice on 11 May at 9:55.
On 12 May at 01.25 (GMT) they reached the North Pole. On 14 May the Norge reached the Inupiat village of Teller, Alaska where in view of worsening weather, the decision was made to land rather than continue to Nome. The airship was reportedly damaged during the landing and was dismantled and shipped back to Italy.
Airship Norge, Spitsbergen, Norway, 1926
The airship Norge floats above Spitsbergen in 1926 before Roald Amundsen's expedition to the North Pole. Amundsen, Umberto Nobile (the pilot and designer of the airship), and Lincoln Ellsworth would fly from Spitsbergen to Alaska, becoming the first people to definitely reach the North Pole.
