The Italia was a semi-rigid airship belonging to the Italian Air Force and designed by Italian engineer and General Umberto Nobile who commanded the dirigible in his second series of flights around the North Pole. Returning from the pole in May 1928, the Italia crashed with one confirmed death, another death from exposure while awaiting rescue, and six missing crew members who were trapped in the envelope, which was blown away. At the end of the rescue operations there were a total of seventeen dead (crew and rescuers) and eight survivors, including General Nobile.

Italia was an N-class semi-rigid airship, designation N-4. It was almost identical in design to the N-1 Norge but was slightly larger in gas capacity.

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. He obtained strong assistance from the Italian Royal Navy and secured the necessary funds from a private financing Committee of the City of Milan.

At 01:15 on 15 April 1928, Italia took off from the base at Milan and headed for the Arctic. 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. Near Trieste, a wind gust damaged one of the tail fins. Later, in the Sudetes, the airship faced severe hailstorms and narrowly escaped lightning strikes.

On arrival at Stolp in Pomerania, at 07:15 on 16 April, inspection revealed hail damage to the propellers and envelope, and severe tail fin damage. All of the ballast and most of the fuel had been used fighting the wind. Repairs took ten days, and the required parts and technicians had to be sent from Italy.

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. The expedition's meteorologist, Finn Malmgren, spotted his house from the air and the airship descended to drop a letter to his mother. Bad weather forced Italia east over Finland; she passed over Rovaniemi at 01:49 on 4 May, reaching the mooring mast at Vadsø later that day. 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.

Nobile planned three polar flights, each exploring a different area of the Arctic, with a return to Kings Bay between flights. Once the necessary engine and structural repairs had been completed, the first flight departed from Kings Bay on 11 May 1928. 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.