You're making my point for me. Most mechanical failures do not result in a crash.
TL;DR:
Agreed.
As far as mustacian, I've done trips cheaper by air than the would have been by car, but it's rare and doesn't included the training expense nor the maintenance fees (I've been in a club most of my time). I'm currently dropping the club and going rental as it's cheaper for the limited number of flight hours I do now (and I just do a little for fun, I no longer take trips anywhere, travel has gotten boring for me).
Long version:
Over the decade and 300 hours I've been flying (and roughly a dozen different airplanes), just off the top of my head right now I've had (and obviously none of them fatal, not even an off airport landing yet):
- Carb heat arm snap off (caught at runup).
- Carb heat cable fall off (found after flight, glad we didn't end up needing carb heat...)
- Runaway autopilot, but it could be overridden with control input (albeit heavy, and at first I thought I had a flight surface failure).
- Multiple autopilot failures where it simply stopped working and/or decided to just make 2 minute turns in one direction instead of tracking. I've now reached the point where I simply never use autopilots. I have zero faith in them.
- Radio failure.
- Vacuum pump failures.
- Standby electric AI failure (on the same flight as a vacuum pump failure, sigh, luckily we *also* had a standby engine vacuum system we could engage, but that requires a power reduction, plus we were VFR anyways).
- Gascolater line failure (leaking gas in the engine compartment).
- Primer pump line failure (luckily we were near the airport and descending when it happened. Smelled like a refinery and we were afraid to cycle and electrics/operate the radio). Did not waste any time on that landing!
- Muffler failure (came apart internally, resulting in a partial blockage and loss of power)
- Multiple FADEC failures resulting in misfires, engine roughness, loss of power.
- 2 instances of total GPS failures.
- Multiple landing gear failures (including on my AMEL check ride, yes, it was a real failure, not DPE induced!). Both on retraction and extension at various times. Always got them down eventually, but it was irritating every time it happened. One time wasn't able to complete the retraction, circled around, landed, found out a brake hose had popped out of the retaining bracket and gotten into the scissors for the gear! That *could* have ended up in a bent airplane as we were flying out of small field were working brakes were important...
I've only declared an emergency once, and that was the runaway autopilot issue. It was so surprising (it wanted to roll the airplane left) and took so much force to override that I seriously considered landing in a field as I thought the airplane had a structural or flight control failure. After figuring out that flying slower made it worse, and that it wasn't getting worse on it's own at speed, I dropped the field landing idea and opted for a straight in, no flaps, fast landing at a paved airport. I was already on an IFR flight plan, so ATC was right there for me and even called the airport on the phone to let them know.
I've also twice very nearly been in mid-air collisions (that I'm aware of). First time I only had about 5 hours as a student and the CFI practically jumped up in his seat, grabbed the controls, and threw us into a very violent turn to avoid an airplane that came right out of the Sun and we didn't see. Apparently also didn't see us somehow... Second time, I was on my first solo IFR trip, taking an airplane down to a shop for a routine static/pitot check. ATC "recommended" an immediate climb due to a non-coordinated traffic conflict. Since I was in IMC, I trusted them, pulled hard, firewalled the throttle (it was a thick hazy soup of IMC, so there was a smidge of visibility vs the total cotton ball) and looked out and down just in time to see a quick flash of a twin going the exact opposite direction, exactly where I would have been... I could have thrown a rock and hit them... You'd think by the time you learn to fly a twin you'd be smart enough to a) have an IFR flight plan in IMC and b) not fly at IFR altitudes without talking to anybody... Sheesh.