Do safety cases have a role in aircraft certification?

Safety cases, as a means of demonstrating system safety, have been increasingly used as the basis for system assurance, especially in safety or mission-critical systems in fields such as offshore installation, railway operations, nuclear plants, and air traffic control. Despite the increased adoption of safety cases in the aforementioned areas, the usage of safety arguments is still limited in the certification of a civil aircraft design. This paper provides 1) a brief overview of the key regulations and guidelines in support of aero-system certification especially at the development stage; 2) a review of the history, the essence, and the practice of safety cases; 3) an analysis of the role of processes and safety arguments in aircraft certification; and 4) recommendations on the future work in terms of further application of safety cases in aircraft certification.