@par, perhaps I should have been more specific. The marine layer we experience here isn’t necessarily fog. It often is a shallow (thickness 500-1000ft) ovc layer with a base of a few hundred feet. It’s quite impressive: just last week I was coming back along the coast VFR and could see it form. Tried to outrun it, but it won! LOL, no problem, just asked for an IAP and flew that. Time in actual IMC? About one minute.
What I’m getting at here is that if these guys were at 12k ft, they might simply not have had the time to get down.
