Almost saw someone crash

As a matter of fact, I did make a comment about flying VFR under such
terrible conditions, and her response was: filing IFR wouldn't have made a
difference. In essence this is true, since the first error was not having a
briefing, the second was continuing her flight into IMC, while the third
was failing to turn around immediately.

As an aside, during the conversation with the people in the FBO, she said
she was a foot and ankle surgeon in the orthopedic department at a
prestigious medical school. However, she was unaware that I am on the
faculty at a neighboring medical school, and know most of the members of the
department where she claimed she practiced. When I named some names, she
immediately changed the subject, and didn't appear to know even the most
prominent members of the department. I never called her on this, but simply
walked away- she was someone that I simply did not want to associate with in
any way.

While I generally have better things to do, I looked up the faculty on the
net, and as it turned out she was not an orthopedic surgeon as I suspected,
but in fact was a podiatrist at a suburban hospital that is loosely
affiliated with the medical school where she claimed to practice- hardly
what she claimed.

Prior to this several pilots, instructors, and experienced mechanics tried
to bring up how dangerous her actions were, and how lucky she was that she
didn't get hurt seriously or killed. She simply didn't get the message, and
dismissed all of these comments. All of us have probably been guilty of some
macho bravado at times, but this was the worst case of this that I had ever
seen. It was either total bluster, or an example of being completely
clueless.

Regardless, this attitude, along with getting caught grossly exaggerating
her job, gave me a lot of bad vibes. Several of us walked away rather than
hang around listening to her conversation and encouraging her behavior.

Hopefully she will hook up with someone who can give her some advice that
she will follow and potentially save her life.