Guidelines for Conducting the Safety Assessment Process on Civil Aircraft, Systems, and Equipment
This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.
What you’ll learn
- Understand the purpose, structure, and role of ARP 4761A within the aircraft certification framework.
- Identify and explain the main safety assessment activities such as FHA, PSSA, SSA, FTA, and FMEA.
- Understand how safety analyses support Development Assurance Level (DAL) determination and safety requirement definition.
- Recognize how ARP 4761A interfaces with ARP 4754B, DO-178C, and DO-254 within the overall development and certification process.
Course Content
- Introduction –> 3 lectures • 16min.
- Basics –> 12 lectures • 46min.
- 3. Safety Assessment Process –> 10 lectures • 2hr 14min.
- 4. Safety Analysis Methods –> 6 lectures • 25min.
- 5. Safety-related Maintenance Tasks and Intervals –> 2 lectures • 4min.
- 6. Master Minimum Equipment List (MMEL) –> 1 lecture • 2min.
- 7. Time-limited Dispatch (TLD) –> 1 lecture • 2min.
- 8. In-Service Safety Assessment –> 1 lecture • 3min.
Requirements
This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.
This online video course provides a clear and structured introduction to SAE ARP 4761A, the internationally recognized guideline for conducting safety assessment processes for aircraft and aircraft systems. The course is designed for beginners who have little or no prior experience with ARP 4761A and who seek a practical, high-level understanding of aircraft system safety rather than advanced safety engineering training.
Throughout the course, learners will gain an understanding of the purpose and background of ARP 4761A and its central role in supporting aircraft certification. The course explains how ARP 4761A complements system development guidance such as ARP 4754B and how it interfaces with other key aerospace standards including DO-178C and DO-254. The relationship between safety assessment activities and system development processes is introduced in a coherent and easy-to-follow manner.
Core safety assessment methods defined in ARP 4761A—such as Functional Hazard Assessment (FHA), Preliminary Aircraft Safety Assessment (PASA), Preliminary System Safety Assessment (PSSA), System Safety Assessment (SSA), Common Cause Analysis (CCA), Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), and Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA)—are explained conceptually, focusing on their objectives, inputs, and expected outputs. The course highlights how these analyses support development assurance decisions and contribute to establishing Development Assurance Levels (DALs) and safety requirements.
The emphasis of the course is on understanding what ARP 4761A requires, how the different safety analyses relate to each other, and why these activities are essential for demonstrating aircraft safety compliance. Detailed mathematical modeling techniques, advanced reliability calculations, and organization-specific safety engineering procedures are intentionally kept at a high level to ensure accessibility for newcomers.
By the end of the course, participants will understand the structure of the ARP 4761A safety assessment process, the terminology used in aircraft safety engineering, and the expectations placed on organizations performing safety analyses within certification programs. This foundational knowledge will enable learners to communicate effectively with system engineers, safety specialists, certification teams, and regulatory authorities, and will prepare them for more advanced training in aircraft system safety and development assurance.
This course is ideal for engineers entering the aerospace or avionics domain, system and safety engineers, project and program managers, quality and certification professionals, and anyone seeking a solid introductory overview of the ARP 4761A guideline.