Aviation accidents happen all the time, people are just paying more attention since a commercial airliner went down, which is rare (in the USA, anyhow).

Many airmen have lost friends in mishaps. I have. Even though airline travel is incredibly safe, that is only a fraction of the world of aviation. To get to the nice pay and safe environment of flying airliners, you have to pay your dues doing more dangerous flying. Air ambulance, flight training, military, night cargo...many of these are single-pilot operations, with no one to catch your mistakes. Sometimes its your mistake as the pilot, it could be maintenance, or ATC, or an act of God. There might be something you can do, and sometimes it works.

You are just one man in a machine with far less redundancy than a modern airliner, with less support, at lower altitudes, in the weather, often at night, and many times in non-radar/no-ATC environments. You need a little luck to survive enough mistakes to learn from them and not repeat them.

Those of us that do it, love it.