[rubyrescue]

The biggest issue is that the stats are skewed by commercial aviation. When you remove that, it's relatively risky per passenger-mile.

Small planes are certainly not safer than driving. I'm a private pilot and i've studied it at length (and I love flying).

I don't have time to braindump my research, as it's slightly hard to compare fatalities per passenger mile in autos vs per flight hour with light non-commercial aviation. It's about 100,000 hours per 1.9 fatalities which includes commercial travel. It's SIGNIFICANTLY higher in small planes.

The way I summarize it to people in casual conversation is: Flying a Cessna is safer than riding a motorcycle but more dangerous than driving a car.

[nsxwolf]

I've tried to do this myself, and found it's pretty difficult task. When you remove really stupid mistakes pilots make (and we'd never do any of those things... we're not THOSE pilots... right?!) it starts to look a lot safer.

[twoodfin]

Driving is also probably substantially safer if you don't make stupid mistakes.

Of course, you're also more at the mercy of others making stupid mistakes.

[nsxwolf]

Yes, but given the distances involved in aviation, mid-airs are less likely than traffic collisions.

It is comforting to know that if you are religious about your preflight checks and your planning, and never fly in weather you aren't comfortable with, your odds of survival are greatly increased. How much is hard to tell, but making a hobby of reading NTSB reports shows you that the unavoidables - like wings randomly falling off - are pretty rare. Stupidity rules the day in aviation accidents.