GA aircraft crash every day in the US. They don't make the news outside of aviation circles because only 1-2 people are affected. Often the occupants survive.

You're far more likely to die in a private plane or in an executive jet. GA aircraft crash constantly.

GA is not some super-dangerous activity that's guaranteed to kill you. But let's not pretend that it's perfectly safe, either. Such an attitude does a disservice to all involved.

A GA pilot is still much more likely to die in bed than in his airplane, but the risk is substantially elevated compared to the average.

Others have touched on the probability thing.

The issue with motorcycles is that a some of it is under your control (driving safely, protective gear, bike maintenance) but there's a lot that isn't: potholes, other drivers, animals and so on.

Flying, almost everything is under the pilot's control. That includes most plane failures. Good preflight and maintenance takes care of most issues. The rest is taken care of by the flight planning – for example, engine failures. You should always have a place to put down the plane at any moment if you lose an engine - and general aviation aircraft land pretty slow.

Newer advancements have made it even safer (see also, whole frame parachutes).

That basically leaves freak accidents; they are a minority. Go spelunk the NTSB database, you'll find most accidents were preventable.

In a nutshell, you are probably going to find the risk is very skewed by complacent or otherwise irresponsible pilots.

I think when GP wrote "commercial airliners are safe... small private craft, not as much", they meant it from the POV of a passenger.

GA (General aviation, people who own a little plane and maybe just fly it for fun, or it's a professional expense for say a plastic surgeon and allows them to fly 300 miles home on Thursday evening after working four days in the big city) is not safe. A few hundred of these people die, not just smash up their planes or get hurt, but die, sometimes with family or friends aboard, every year. It might make the local TV news, at most. Unless they were a celebrity it won't make national news.

Commercial is more complicated because there are so many possibilities. Cargo is pretty safe, if your job is to move boxes of stuff from one big jet airport to another in a civilized country you'll likely die in bed of old age. But if you fly a police helicopter, or medevac, or you're a crop duster, or you fly custom pick up jobs, when the client wants and where they want - those jobs can go badly wrong much too easily, without you really understanding what you've got yourself into until it's too late. These people are (or at least should be) better trained than in GA, but they're also often flying more demanding missions. You may operate out of somewhere with not-so-great capabilities, on short notice, in poor weather and/or at night, and you may be expected to go places that you ordinarily wouldn't, close to buildings, close to other aircraft, even close to the ground - all of which narrows your options if things go wrong.

Military is also pretty bad as I understand it. It needn't be, but there's some sense that the job is "supposed" to be dangerous, which maybe makes sense for front line infantry, but really not for the vast majority of military pilots - way too many of them die far from any enemy, as a result of somebody screwing up, just like in GA or commercial.

Saying commercial aviation is safe is like saying school busses are safe, it ignores people going out in bad weather etc. Commercial aviation has a great safty record beause they are cautious, not because it's an easy problem.

The vastly more deadly general aviation compares more closely with the automotive fatality rates. GA has 16 fatal accidents per million hours, that’s horrific.

I firmly believe that 2/3rds of the fatality risk in GA is pilot-controlled and readily avoidable: weather, fuel exhaustion and "ostentatious display" (buzzing, etc) are relatively easy to avoid with nothing more than basic knowledge and firm discipline.

On a motorcycle, many risks are rider-controlled but a lot of your safety is in the hands of people near you that you'll never meet. Less so in aviation, IMO.