We took off out of HNL at about 11 pm, and turned around about 30 minutes later and landed. They couldn't get the gear doors closed, and would have burned too much fuel with the doors open.
We went back to the gate, sat on the plane for a few hours, then got off for an hour or so, got back on for another few hours, then crew rest time was violated and we cancelled around 3 am. I was with a bunch of other employees and I was in charge of finding us a ride. QANTAS wouldn't take any of us even though they had room (foreign carriers can't take "real" passengers between 2 points in America, so they had seats from people that flew in from SYD and stayed in HNL. I waited till the counters opened canvassed the charters, and then found Phillipines, who let only employees (no spouses, no passes) on for $100 to SFO, we left around 2 PM. Long day....
For the plane, they worked all day on it, and tried again the next night, same thing, they had to turn around and land. It was our only 747 and we had nothing that could make the flight, so we ended up cancelling 4 days of flights. It was a nightmare, I lucked out and got out before lots of others did.