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Many consider the distances and speeds that Peary claimed to have achieved once the last support party turned back – almost three times that which he had accomplished up to that point – incredible. Peary's account of a journey to the pole and back while travelling along the direct line – the only strategy that is consistent with the time constraints he was facing – is contradicted by Henson's account of tortuous detours to avoid pressure ridges and open leads.

The first recorded flight over the North Pole was made on 9 May 1926 by US naval officer Richard E Byrd and pilot Floyd Bennett in a Fokker tri-motor aircraft but this claim has also been disputed.

The first undisputed sighting of the pole was on 12 May 1926 by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, who used the airship Norge, together with his American sponsor Lincoln Ellsworth and pilot Umberto Nobile. The flight started from Svalbard and crossed the entire ice-cap to Alaska. Nobile, along with several scientists and crew from the Norge, overflew the pole a second time on 24 May 1928 in the airship Italia, but it crashed on its return, with the loss of half the crew.