In the U.S. approximately 360 people die each year in general aviation accidents, or about 1 a day. This is in comparison to 43,000 killed each year in cars, or 117 a day.
The thing about statistics is that only mean what you want them to mean. Take the above statistic, for example. It seems that driving a car is a lot more dangerous. Except that there are a lot more people driving cars in a given day, than people flying general aviation airplanes. And spending a lot more hours in those cars, too. So it's really a nonsensical comparison.
What we do need to see when we look at the statistics is what keeps coming back again and again and a cause or contributing factor. Controlled flight into terrain. Fuel exhaustion or mismanagement. Continued VFR flight into instrument meteorological conditions, and so forth. The fatalities, the mishaps, the crashes, the close calls that continue to happen...these largely keep happening for the same reasons.
The most dangerous component in the airplane continues to be the pilot.
This is not a constant. You may not be able to control an engine bearing failure. You may not be able to control an instrument failure, or a fuel leak, or a stuck landing gear, or a fire. But you can control you. You're by far the single most dangerous thing in the airplane, and ironically, the only component that can make it safe. In fact, you're the only component in the airplane that can alter a dangerous situation to ensure a safe outcome, and like all components in the airplane, you're required equipment.
We preflight powerplants, we preflight fuel, airframes, charts, weather, etc. Do we preflight ourselves as much as we should? Are we tired? Are we going through a divorce? Are we going beyond our comfort and training, just because we legally can? Are we carrying minimum fuel just because it's legal? Are we going because we feel pressure to get there? Could this flight wait until the morning? Is there a better way? Wouldn't it be a good idea to invite a second person along on this flight, today? We're legal to takeoff because we have the necessary landings in our logbook..but are we really proficient? Is an occasional flight review and a landing enough? How long has it really been since training was received on...partial panel? Electrical failures? Forced landings? Night landings without the lights?
Particularly as a private pilot, there's seldom someone looking over your shoulder whipping you into shape, checking up on your recency of experience, ensuring that you're performing to standard, or requiring you to undertake regular, recurrent training. It's all on you.
Recently I called the cell phone company about a problem. They reminded me that I hadn't updated the phone in a year. Can't be, I thought...has it been that long? Training is the same way...you might not realize how long it's been until the engine really quits, until you find yourself partial panel at night in a featureless area, or until something occurs that takes you squarely out of the day to day routine operations and into a place where that unused training is required.
A few years ago I went to DeLand, Florida. It's a well known drop zone. I had my parachute, had my license, but it had been a little while. I elected to pay for some recurrent jump training. I got quizzed, got put in the training harness, went through all the drills...and even though I wasn't required to do that, and it cost extra money, seeking the additional refresher training was worth every penny to me. We may not be required to seek the training legally...but then who says we have to perform at the legal minimum all the time.
In the kind of flying I'm doing right now, one of our requirements is called an equal time point alternate. We have to have reserve fuel for a variety of different circumstances, that being one of them. ETP alternate fuel is only fifteen minutes on arrival...it's considered emergency fuel. That's not much. Not much at all. Fifteen minutes of fuel remaing. For us, that would be about seven thousand pounds. We don't ever do anything like that, however...it would be insane Most of the time we land with closer to 40,000 lbs of fuel...roughly an hour and a half of fuel, instead. It's more than what's required even at our regular destination or an alternate, but we land with it anyway. Who's to say that unforecast winds, mechanical problems, or other situations won't arise that fall outside of our plans? If we plan for the bare minimum all the time, then we can't be too shocked if our plans occasionally fail or fall short. It's a judgement issue.
The pilot is the most dangerous component, and the ability to address that is entirely in your hands. The question, then, once more...is not how dangerous is flying, but how dangerous are you?