Hawaii-based Airlines - HA 17 LAS-HNL today diverts back to SFO

Some friends are on HA 17 from LAS to HNL today, which was about an hour off the coast and diverted back to SFO. Here is a map of the route (http://www.helloflight.com/Flight/HAL17.Cfm).

Captain reportedly said there was a failure of both the autopilot and the auto-throttle. He said they flew it manually for about three hours, but could not continue on.

HA website/FlightView (http://tracker.flightview.com/fvHawaiian/FlifoCgi.exe?qtype=htm&rtype=a&al=HA&DepAp=LAS&ddate=20091027&ArrAp=HNL&Find2=Find+flight) as of now says it's to continue on (though my friend said with a new crew and aircraft) hopefully about an hour from now -- at 10:15 AM.

Captain reportedly said there was a failure of both the autopilot and the auto-throttle. He said they flew it manually for about three hours, but could not continue on.



Seems odd to me that it would take 3 hours of manual flying to decide they would have to divert...

Maybe one thing went, without which they were only slightly inconvenienced, and then three hours later, the other thing went, and without both, they had to turn back?