The way a lot of translators operate isn't always Kosher.
Where I live our Classic Hits station is an AM with a translator and a few times I've heard the translator running different programming. - A couple months ago they had a glitch where they were running the same songs on an hourly loop. While the Italian Show and Lutheran Church Mass aired as normal on the AM, the translator continued on with the messed up Classic Hits feed.
They have a sister station that plays Spanish Hits. It supposedly originates at 104.1 HD2 and is on translators throughout the state - 97.1, 98.5, 99.5, 1017, 102.3, and 104.5 in 2 different areas of the state. On more than one occasion 104.1's HD channels were down, but their Spanish Hits format continued on the translators.
Sounds like bomba's translators and the HD are fed over the internet and something crapped the bed going to the HD signal
Prob. similar with 990/96.1 and a failsafe tape kicked in when silence was detected
Not kosher kinda implies intent... rather, i think these were tech problems