You neet see the red terminating bars to descend below 100' not to 100'. to descend to 100' all you need to see is the app lights. Thanks for clearing that up for me though, I'm going to assume that he saw the red terminating or side row lights. That would enable him to descend further which might explain why he told the FEDs that he saw the runway at 50'. Once again I wasn't there so...
I do, however, feel real bad for the guys. No matter what we say, this could happen to us. They are our brothers. We, as pilots have such unique jobs (just like firefighters or policemen) that we must stick together and support one another. The public will never understand what we do. I wish those guys the best of luck.