I guess there are people who do it for the danger, but the beauty of it is that you can get really down in the details and master things so it's not that risky. Once you really master the game, your biggest danger is yourself: get-there-itis, sloppy preflights, pushing things a little at a time, getting away with them, then pushing more, and so on.
I have done nothing in my life that I loved as much as flying. Mankind has been staring up into the sky for eons wishing we could fly. Now we can. Who wouldn't want to be part of that?
Normalization of deviance, for people interested in the literature.
I don't fly anymore, but when I did? I used to get all the aviation safety magazines and read them cover-to-cover. I also knew some flight instructor instructors; people known for teaching safety in the industry.
A surprising number of well-trained pilots get in perfectly good airplanes and fly them until they run out of gas. Just because you pushed it those last dozen times doesn't mean you're going to get away with it this time.
EDIT: One of the more unusual crashes I will mention since this is HN happened out in the mountain states. A couple of thousand hour+ MEII pilots get into a multi-million dollar brand new jet. It's CAVU -- clear skies, visibility unlimited. They then proceed to fly the plane into the side of a mountain -- all the time trying to figure out the new switches and displays in the cockpit. I still think of that one when designing UX. Aviation is really complex, detailed, fun, and full of math like programming. But it is also a life-and-death endeavor if you take it too lightly. If you're safety paranoid, take up boating. It's much more forgiving than aviation.
Aside from the downdraft issue, running out of gas at altitude in VMC can be very interesting, but it doesn't have to be fatal. Even in heavily-forested areas, in a small plane you can put out the barn doors and decrease your horizontal speed quite bit, especially with a headwind.
We had a guy in Virginia in the 90s, I think. He was a student-ish pilot in a 150 that ended up in IMC (fog) in the heavily-wooded mountains while running out of gas.
He slowed the plane down as much he could, somehow kept the wings level, and ended up on somebody's back deck. Walked away. That's not guaranteed, of course, but in general planes are crash-rated based on flying directly into something. It's the failure to maintain control that kills many times more than the crash itself. Heck, they used to have shows where people crashed planes on purpose.
https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/ReportGeneratorFile.ashx?E...
It can be an interesting experience, even if you have no desire to become a licensed pilot.
In case you are interested, that book is a post-apocalyptic novel and the protagonist has a great relationship with his dog. Usually having a dog in the story is all it takes to keep me interested, but I loved everything about this book.
When I turned 16 and started driving, my life changed overnight in a very good way. I imagine learning to fly would give me that feeling again. I could go where I want and not be limited by going where the roads are. It's very appealing.
I can hardly wait for my electric VTOL PAV.
This is a fundamental drive in many people that calls on something innate.
I tried to get into guitar, but after I found skydiving I sold my guitar for my initial training and have been jumping ever since (20 years). That led me to wanting to drive airplanes when I could afford it.
Flying touches my imagination some how and was always interested in it. Being able to leave my local airport and bust out of the clouds hundreds of miles away safely despite the weather and lack of vision is rewarding.