night engine failure = certain death. It doesn't.
Quite right, but nightfall brings with it a huge shift in the odds from daylight.
I'm pleased that your friend survived to fight another day, but landing into a completely dark area is the equivalent of playing Russian Roulette in my opinion- you might arrive in a lake, quarry, a field covered in electricity pylons, or obstructed with trees, a stone wall half way across your roll out etc.
I'd argue that once your engine fails at night, the quality of your decision making is greatly degraded compared to daytime, since you simply cannot pick a field in the same way.
If you had said that the probability of engine failure was so low that this makes night flying a decent proposition, so go for it, I would have a lot of sympathy with that perspective since we all have individual views on risk - e.g. some motor cyclists (e.g. UK, Germany) spend a lot of moeny on protective gear, whereas their counterparts in some other countries do not - and I am sure that both groups reckon the risk is acceptable.