Passengers began boarding Eastland at about 6:30 am and by 7:10 am the ship had reached its capacity of 2.572 passengers. The ship was packed with many passengers standing on the open upper decks and began to list slightly to the port side. The crew attempted to stabilize the ship by admitting water to its ballast tanks to little avail. Sometime during the next 15 minutes a number of passengers rushed to the port side and at 7:28 am Eastland lurched sharply to port and then rolled completely onto its port side, coming to rest on the river bottom.