I don't know about US practice but here in the UK gas cookers do not usually have a "pilot light". Gas is ignited in or on the cooker with a n electrical spark. Further, if a heating element is (say) blown out a flame failure device (see below) shuts off the gas.

Central heating boilers do have pilot lights, but again there is a flame failure device. A thermocouple is right by the pilot light. The thermocouple has to produce a signal to hold open the gas solenoid. No pilot light, no signal from the thermocouple, so no gas. If the thermocouple fails, likewise no gas.

I had a US made swimming pool boiler for a while, and that had a gas pressure sensor too - too much or too little gas pressure and the gas would stay off - and also a temperature differential sensor (too little or too great a temperature differential between the temperature of water coming into the flame bed and leaving it) - same outcome.

A gas explosion is far more likely to result from a leak at the gas meter (relatively common - anedotally I'd say one hears of maybe one every year or couple of years) usually caused by someone trying to bypass the meter and get free gas. One idiot I remember was reported to have used a bicycle inner tube for the job and it blew up like a balloon and then went pop.

The bayonet connector for a cooker might fail, but they are fairly moronproof. The other end of the tough old flexi that goes to the cooker depends on a sealing paste to seal two plates together but here in the UK it is illegal to fit one such unless you are a registered gas fitter, so DIY in the area is uncommon.