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ARP4761
ARP4761, Guidelines and Methods for Conducting the Safety
Guidelines and Methods for
Assessment Process on Civil Airborne Systems and Equipment is an
Conducting the Safety
Aerospace Recommended Practice from SAE International.[1] In conjunction
Assessment Process on
with ARP4754, ARP4761 is used to demonstrate compliance with
Civil Airborne Systems and
14 CFR 25.1309 in the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
Equipment
airworthiness regulations for transport category aircraft, and also harmonized
international airworthiness regulations such as European Aviation Safety Latest December 1996
Agency (EASA) CS–25.1309. version
Organization International
This Recommended Practice defines a process for using common modeling
techniques to assess the safety of a system being put together. The first 30
Domain Aviation
pages of the document covers that process. The next 140 pages give an Abbreviation ARP4761
overview of the modeling techniques and how they should be applied. The last Website www.sae.org
160 pages give an example of the process in action. /technical/standards
/ARP4761 (http://ww
Some of the methods covered:
w.sae.org/technical/s
Functional Hazard Assessment (FHA) tandards/ARP4761)
Preliminary System Safety Assessment (PSSA)
System Safety Assessment (SSA)
Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)
Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA)
Failure Modes and Effects Summary (FMES)
Common Cause Analysis (CCA), consisting of:

Zonal Safety Analysis (ZSA)

Particular Risks Analysis (PRA)
Common Mode Analysis (CMA)

Contents
Safety life cycle
Future changes
See also
References

Safety life cycle

The general flow of the safety life cycle under ARP4761 is:

1. Perform the aircraft level FHA in parallel with development of aircraft level requirements.
2. Perform the system level FHA in parallel with allocation of aircraft functions to system functions, and initiate the CCA.
3. Perform the PSSA in parallel with system architecture development, and update the CCA.
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4. Iterate the CCA and PSSA as the system is allocated into hardware and software components.
5. Perform the SSA in parallel with system implementation, and complete the CCA.
6. Feed the results into the certification process.
The Functional Safety process is focused on identifying functional failure conditions leading to hazards. Functional
Hazard Analyses / Assessments are central to determining hazards. FHA is performed early in aircraft design, first as an
Aircraft Functional Hazard Analysis (AFHA) and then as a System Functional Hazard Analysis (SFHA). Using qualitative
assessment, aircraft functions and subsequently aircraft system functions are systematically analyzed for failure
conditions, and each failure condition is assigned a hazard classification. Hazard classifications are closely related to
Development Assurance Levels (DALs) and are aligned between ARP4761 and related aviation safety documents such as
ARP4754A, 14 CFR 25.1309, and Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA) standards DO-254 and DO-178B.

Hazard Classification Development Assurance Level Maximum Probability per Flight Hour

Catastrophic A 10−9

Hazardous B 10−7

Major C 10−5
Minor D --
No Effect E --

FHA results are normally shown in spreadsheet form, with columns identifying function, failure condition, phase of flight,
effect, hazard classification, DAL, means of detection, aircrew response, and related information. Each hazard is assigned
a unique identifier that is tracked throughout the entire safety life cycle. One approach is to identify systems by their ATA
system codes and the corresponding hazards by derivative identifiers. For example, the thrust reverser system could be
identified by its ATA code 78-30. Untimely deployment of thrust reverser would be a hazard, which could be assigned an
identifier based on ATA code 78-30.

FHA results are coordinated with the system design process as aircraft functions are allocated to aircraft systems. The
FHA also feeds into the PSSA, which is prepared while the system architecture is developed.

The PSSA may contain qualitative FTA, which can be used to identify systems requiring redundancy so that catastrophic
events do not result from a single failure (or dual failure where one is latent). A fault tree is prepared for each SFHA
hazard rated hazardous or catastrophic. Fault trees may be performed for major hazards if warranted. DALs and specific
safety design requirements are imposed on the subsystems. The safety design requirements are captured and traced.
These may include preventive or mitigation strategies selected for particular subsystems. The PSSA and CCA generate
separation requirements to identify and eliminate common mode failures. Subsystem failure rate budgets are assigned so
that hazard probability limits can be met.

The CCA consists of three separate types of analyses which are designed to uncover hazards not created by a specific
subsystem component failure. The CCA may be many separate documents, may be one CCA document, or may be included
as sections in the SSA document. The Particular Risk Analysis (PRA) looks for external events which can create a hazard
such as a birdstrike or engine turbine burst. The Zonal Safety Analysis (ZSA) looks at each compartment on the aircraft
and looks for hazards that can affect every component in that compartment, such as loss of cooling air or a fluid line
bursting. The Common Mode Analysis (CMA) looks at the redundant critical components to find failure modes which can
cause all to fail at about the same time. Software is always included in this analysis as well as looking for manufacturing
errors or "bad lot" components. A failure such as a bad resistor in all flight control computers would be addressed here.
The mitigations for CMA discoveries is often DO-254 or DO-178B components.

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The SSA includes quantitative FMEA, which is summarized into FMES. Normally FMES probabilities are used in
quantitative FTA to demonstrate that the hazard probability limits are in fact met. Cutset analysis of the fault trees
demonstrates that no single failure condition will result in a hazardous or catastrophic event. The SSA may include the
results of all safety analysis and be one document or may be many documents. An FTA is only one method for performing
the SSA. Other methods include dependence diagram or reliability block diagram and Markov Analysis.

The PSSA and CCA often result in recommendations or design requirements to improve the system. The SSA summarizes
the residual risks remaining in the system and should show all hazards meet the 1309 failure rates.

The ARP4761 analyses also feed into Crew Alerting System (CAS) message selection and the development of critical
maintenance tasks under ATA MSG3.

Future changes
In 2004, SAE Standard Committee S-18 began working on Revision A to ARP4761. When released, EUROCAE plans to
jointly issue the document as ED–135.

See also
ARP4754
DO-254
DO-178B
Safety engineering
avionics

References
1. S–18 (1996). Guidelines and methods for conducting the safety assessment process on civil airborne systems and
equipment (http://www.sae.org/technical/standards/ARP4761). SAE International. ARP4761.

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