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Out of contact for an hour, but only flew 150 mph past the airport?

It's puzzling as it stands but the tower was probably expecting the flight to land on it's schedule and started hailing them about a hundred miles out. The tower may have noticed that the flight hadn't descended below 24,000 approach. No radio contact and an aircraft flying right over top at altitude wasn't a threat (to them) but drove 'em nuts. Then calls were made to inform Homeland Security et al of the errant aircraft. So the time frame would be one hour but distances extended to maybe 250-300 miles, until the flight attendant woke 'em up.

We had a similar incident of an overflight here a year or so ago. A flight from Honolulu to Hilo over flew the a/p, out of contact for 20 minutes before turning around and landing. Those flights are only 45 minutes long and everybody on the a/c knew something was wrong....all they had to do was check their watches and look out the windows and see Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa pass by.

"Then calls were made to inform Homeland Security et al of the errant aircraft."

That's what was supposed to happen, but I haven't seen it reported anywhere that the tower actually made those calls. Perhaps they did, and it just wasn't reported.

And, I remember that HI incident. You're right, with a location like the HI islands, it would certainly raise many more suspicions with the passengers, because it would be so visually apparent. In that case it was definitely pilot fatigue, was it not?