Course correction or time loop?

As a youth soccer coach, I often have to line the fields for play. Sometimes, if I make a mistake in the line, or start running out of paint, I have to go back and repaint that line.

When it comes to Lost, let's just play this one out for fun...

Whatever happened, happened right?

So maybe something happens on the Island in 1977 that requires the hatch to be built and the buttons to be pressed every 108 minutes. And when Desmond fails to press them, it causes flight 815 to crash on the Island.

Now let's add Mrs. Hawkings' premise that the universe will course correct when something does not go as planned.

So if the event that caused the hatch to be built was indeed never supposed to happen (maybe because it was caused by someone from the future trying to change the past), then the universe immediately starts on the path of self-correction. It causes a plane to crash on the island, it sends some of those survivors back in time to the point of the unintended event to prevent it, and once prevented, the universe is back on course. Now the universe can continue on with all of the events that happened from 1977 up until the time when the universal course correction took place (crash of 815), and with no need for that crash on the island, time and the universe continue on the intended course and flight 815 lands safely in LA.

Think of it as a quick loop back to fix a mistake.