IFR rated pilot here that's been flying for ~ 10 years. I agree with you 100% on the risks being largely under the pilots control.
However I also believe that there's something about aviation that attracts the type of people who are uniquely unsuited for it. Daredevils, non-detail minded, and just plain incompetent.
When you read the NTSB reports and such it's just not pretty.
Pilot after pilot runs out of fuel or manages to run a perfectly good airplane into the ground / side of a mountain because they weren't observant.
I'm not sure what the solution is though. We've had 30 years of the FAA and all the associations preaching safety to no effect. More regulation won't help either since all the main accident factors are already against some regulation or another.
Doing user studies and paying attention to my own behavior, I grow more and more aware how rare consistent, no-error performance of tasks is. Stupid mistakes now seem more the human norm than the exception.
What's especially sinister to me is how long it took me to really get that. And how much my self-perceived skill is more about my ability to recover from error than my ability to avoid error in the first place. Especially when it's over time periods long enough for fear to wear off.
I'd never take up flying, because I know my attention would wander during those long periods of apparent calm but actual risk.
As a programmer it's also taken me quite awhile to recognize that I'm not a perfect snowflake and am quite capable of writing code that contains horrendous bugs.
I've always recognized that while flying though, because I've always felt like a neophyte at it, and not a "real" pilot.
Statistically speaking, it's pretty safe to allow your attention to wander a bit while on a long uneventful flight. That's why there are auto-pilots. The real danger comes in whenever you're close to the ground or in bad weather.
Surprisingly the #1 thing you can do to avoid an accident is just make sure you have enough fuel. Which is a very low bar to clear.
However I also believe that there's something about aviation that attracts the type of people who are uniquely unsuited for it. Daredevils, non-detail minded, and just plain incompetent.
When you read the NTSB reports and such it's just not pretty.
Pilot after pilot runs out of fuel or manages to run a perfectly good airplane into the ground / side of a mountain because they weren't observant.
I'm not sure what the solution is though. We've had 30 years of the FAA and all the associations preaching safety to no effect. More regulation won't help either since all the main accident factors are already against some regulation or another.