A very large amount of private aircraft related accidents happen because of extreme conditions in which a commercial airliner would have not been flying under in any case. Privately owned aircraft also tend to be much less well maintained and their pilots have considerably fewer flight hours than big or small commercial aircraft.

This is when "safety" takes a backseat to private ownership and responsibility, it's not because smaller aircraft are inherently less safe.

When embark on a private flight in a private aircraft there's virtually almost no circumstances in which you will not be cleared off for take off. Not to mention that anything upto a small jet can does take of from any sufficiently long patch of dirt rather than a fully staffed airport with ground crew that services and clears the aircraft.

If these guys will follow the same rules there is nothing much more inherently unsafe in being in a smaller or a rotary wing aircraft than in a brand new 747-800.

If you apply napkin calculations you can also make it sound that military aircraft are much more less safe than civilian ones, even in such cases in which they are the exact same aircraft in a different color scheme. It's not that the aircraft is less safe it's that the conditions it operates under are inherently more dangerous both in peace time and war.