On the previous evening, Morro Castle's captain, Robert Willmott, had died suddenly, and his place was taken by Chief Officer William Warms as a strong northeast wind was developing under heavy cloud.

Responses by the crew, the United States Coast Guard and rescue vessels were notably slow and inefficient, with lifeboats not loaded to their capacity.

The decks were too hot to stand on, smoke made breathing difficult and passengers were forced to leap into ocean swells where swimming was impossible.

Over the next four years, Morro Castle and Oriente performed as workhorses, rarely out of service and, despite the worsening of the Great Depression, able to maintain a steady clientele.

The Ward Line's reasonable rates attracted Cuban and American businessmen and older couples, making the ships a microcosm of America during the period.

Command of the ship passed to the chief officer, William Warms, who was eating dinner with friends Samuel Hicks and Connor Schmutz at the time.

At around 2:50 a.m. on September 8, while Morro Castle was sailing around eight nautical miles off Long Beach Island, a fire was detected in a storage locker within the First Class Writing Room on B Deck.

As they hit the water, life preservers knocked many persons unconscious, leading to subsequent death by drowning, or broke victims' necks from the impact, killing them instantly.

[7]: 98 As telephone communication and radio stations spread news of the disaster along the New Jersey coast, local citizens assembled on the coastline to assist the injured, retrieve the dead and try to unite families that had been scattered among different rescue boats that landed on the beaches.

By mid-morning, Morro Castle was totally abandoned and its burning hull drifted ashore, coming to a stop late that afternoon in shallow water off Asbury Park, at almost the exact spot where the New Era had wrecked in 1854.

[10] The design of Morro Castle, the materials used in her construction and questionable crew practices escalated the on-board fire to a roaring inferno that would eventually destroy the ship.

As far as the materials used in her construction were concerned, the elegant but highly flammable decor of Morro Castle—veneered wooden surfaces and glued ply paneling—helped the fire to spread quickly.

When the emergency aboard Morro Castle occurred, the crew opened virtually all working hydrants, dropping the water pressure to unusable levels everywhere.

The Lyle gun exploded just before 3 a.m., further spreading the fire and breaking windows, thereby allowing the near gale force winds to enter the ship and fan the flames.

That said, it is unlikely that that would have made much difference, as the six-inch opening between the wooden ceilings and the steel bulkheads would have allowed the flames to spread even if the fire doors had closed.

[7]: 45  Later, in their attempt to reach passengers in some suites, crewmen broke windows on several decks, allowing the high winds to enter the ship and hasten the fire's fury.

[citation needed] Warms, chief engineer Eban Abbott and Ward Line vice president Henry Cabaud were eventually indicted on various charges relating to the fire, including willful negligence; all three were convicted and sent to jail.

[citation needed] In the inquiry that followed the disaster, Chief Radio Operator George White Rogers was made out to be a hero because, having been unable to get a clear order from the bridge, he sent a distress call of his own accord amidst life-threatening conditions.

Additionally, his crippled victim, Vincent "Bud" Doyle, spent the better part of his life attempting to prove that Rogers had set the Morro Castle fire.

[11] The New York Times reported the end of the inquiry on March 27, 1937, with an order by Federal Judge John C. Knox affixing liability at $890,000, an average of $2,225 per victim.

Morro Castle's funnel was clad in flammable material where it passed through the passenger quarters, and several people had noticed smoke as early as midnight.

The ship was making 19 knots against a 20-knot headwind and simply overheated, according to McFee, but the high loss of life was caused by the crew's incompetent handling of the emergency.

[14] Renée Méndez Capote, a Cuban writer who was aboard Morro Castle when the tragedy happened, was trapped in her cabin as the ship became engulfed in flames but was rescued by crew members.

[15] The Morro Castle's radio call sign, KGOV, is still registered to the ship by the Federal Communications Commission nearly ninety years after her demise, and is therefore unavailable for use by terrestrial broadcast stations.

[16] On September 8, 2009, the first and only memorial to the victims, rescuers and survivors of the Morro Castle disaster was dedicated on the south side of Convention Hall in Asbury Park, very near the spot where the burned-out hull of the ship finally came aground.

[18] Despite the tragedy and mystery of the Morro Castle disaster, no film for theatrical distribution nor even a television movie was made of the story, excepting the aforementioned HBO dramatization and A&E documentary.

Shortly after he was hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer following his emigration from Germany to the United States in 1934, Fritz Lang collaborated with Hollywood scriptwriter Oliver H. P. Garrett on a screenplay about the disaster entitled Hell Afloat, but it was never filmed.

Lengthy descriptions of the looting activity and commercialization of the event, including beachside hot dog vendors and rental planes which took onlookers out to view the smoldering hulk of the burned ship.