Moussa Sissoko scored twice while Loic Remy and Vurnon Anita also found the net as Newcastle hammered relegation-threatened Hull, whose only goal came virtue of defender Curtis Davies early in the second half.
Hull contributed to their own downfall with a number of defensive lapses, Remy capitalising on a poor backpass from Maynor Figueroa for Newcastle's second, with the third coming through Sissoko after Ahmed Elmohamady had failed to control a short free-kick from Alex Bruce.
However, the action on the pitch was largely marred by Newcastle manager Alan Pardew's 72nd-minute clash with Hull midfielder David Meyler, which saw the 52-year-old sent to the stands after appearing to headbutt the former Sunderland man.
That moment of controversy will steal the headlines, but the elder Bruce was quick to admonish his players for their errors, which were paired with a number of missed chances.
Alex Bruce and Shane Long were denied within seconds of each other by Tim Krul just moments before Sissoko opened the scoring.
"We played fantastically well first half, we've had a great chance, then a bit of quality from Newcastle and we're 1-0 down," he said.
"Then we've had (Nikica) Jelavic's chance, Elmohamady's chance, Jelavic hits the bar and then we go and make a mistake like you see on a Sunday morning park pitch (for the second goal), and you can't do that at this level.
"We've made more mistakes today than I remember us making in six months and when you play at this level you can't do that.
"Collectively and individually, we've made just basic, bad schoolboy errors, we've basically give them three goals in my opinion and when you do that it's always going to be a difficult afternoon and we rightly got punished."
