ARP 4761 Safety Assessment Online Training: FHA, PSSA, SSA, CCA (AV-CERT-300)

Course overview

Safety assessment is what justifies the assurance levels every other discipline depends on. AV-CERT-300 explains the full ARP 4761 toolkit — Functional Hazard Assessment, Preliminary System Safety Assessment, System Safety Assessment, and Common Cause Analysis — and how they feed development.

Through worked discussion, the course shows how each analysis is performed, how they connect to one another, and how the results drive DAL assignment and verification scope.

What you will learn

• How FHA, PSSA, SSA, and CCA fit together across the program
• How to perform a Functional Hazard Assessment at aircraft and system level
• Using PSSA and SSA to substantiate safety objectives
• Common Cause Analysis: zonal, particular risk, and common mode
• How safety results drive DAL assignment and development activities

Who should take this course

Safety, systems, and certification engineers who must plan or execute ARP 4761 analyses and tie them to development assurance.

Recommended prerequisite: AV-CERT-210 — ARP 4754 Introduction & Planning

Course outline

1. The ARP 4761 toolkit — how FHA, PSSA, SSA and CCA divide the safety work.
2. Functional Hazard Assessment — identifying failure conditions and classifying severity at aircraft and system level.
3. PSSA and SSA — substantiating safety objectives before and after the design exists.
4. Common Cause Analysis — zonal safety, particular risks and common mode.
5. Feeding development — how safety results drive DAL assignment and verification scope.

How the safety analyses chain together

ARP 4761 is not four independent analyses but one connected chain. The Functional Hazard Assessment starts it by identifying failure conditions and classifying their severity, which establishes the safety objectives and the assurance levels everything downstream inherits. The Preliminary System Safety Assessment then shows, against the proposed architecture, that those objectives can be met; the System Safety Assessment confirms, against the implemented design, that they were. Common Cause Analysis — zonal safety analysis, particular risk analysis and common mode analysis — checks the independence the other analyses assumed actually holds.

The reason this chain matters is that a weakness anywhere in it undermines the rest: an incomplete FHA leaves objectives unstated, and an unverified independence claim invalidates a fault tree. Seeing the analyses as one feedback loop with development — rather than a set of documents produced for the file — is what makes a safety program credible. This course teaches them that way.

What you will be able to do afterward

After AV-CERT-300 you will understand how FHA, PSSA, SSA and CCA connect, how to perform each at the right level, and how their results drive DAL assignment and the development and verification effort.

How this course fits your certification path

AV-CERT-300 follows AV-CERT-210 and leads into focused courses on FHA (AV-CERT-340) and Fault Tree Analysis (AV-CERT-350). For more, see our ARP 4754 explained guide. Prefer instructor-led? Explore our full ARP 4754 & 4761 training courses.

How on-demand training works

Every ConsuNova module is delivered online and self-paced, so you can learn on your own schedule. Each purchase includes 30-day access with unlimited views and downloads for one user, and a certificate of completion is issued automatically when you finish the module.

Your instructors

This module is authored and delivered by ConsuNova’s senior certification authorities, giving you both FAA and EASA perspectives on compliance:

Reza Madjidi FAA DER Consultant

Provides FAA Designated Engineering Representative expertise on U.S. avionics certification.

Martin Beeby EASA CVE Authorized

Brings EASA Certification Verification Engineer authority on European avionics compliance.

Frequently asked questions