You got the comments right with that one ... "But statistics are irrelevant when you wind up in the crosshairs....."

Regarding "alpine style": I should probably have elaborated. In this case I was referring to the amount of gear that they have tried to jam in their packs. It's always a tradeoff between light-and-fast, or heavy-and-slow. Knowing that they had a time window of 2-3 days of good weather, they may have figured on moving quickly.

If they were delayed at the summit (e.g. by an accident) and were then overtaken by the storm - then they would be in fresh wet snow, possibly very limited visibility and strong winds. It's very easy to get lost under those conditions. The mountains become very dangerous when people get off route.

The fact that one climber was found at a lower elevation - may indicate that the strongest member of the team tried to move ahead and seek help. One of the others may be injured, and that pair could be in a snow cave.

Should personal locator beacons be made mandatory? That's an interesting issue to debate. One of those PLB's could just have offered hope in this situation.

other Pete