European UAS/RPAS Airworthiness Certification – “1309” System Safety Objectives & Assessment Criteria

Patrick Egan

With thanks to our friend Peter van Blyenburgh of UVS International

As an exceptional measure, and with the intent to promote international reflection concerning the content of the EUROCAE document with reference ER-010 and the title “WG-73 AMC 1309 System Safety Objectives and Assessment Criteria”, EUROCAE requests and authorises UVS International to freely disseminate this document to all interested persons, companies & organisations together with the explanation letter provided in attachment

When using this document as a reference source, or quoting extracts of it, the recipients of this document should refer to EUROCAE document ER-010 as the source.

The copyrights of EUROCAE document ER-010 remain the property of EUROCAE.

EUROCAE Technical Report ER-010 entitled UAS / RPAS AIRWORTHINESS CERTIFICATION – System Safety Objectives and Assessment Criteria was approved at the EUROCAE WG73 Plenary Session # 21 on July 11th, 2013 after due completion of the consultation process, as required by EUROCAE internal procedures. It was formally submitted in September 2013 to EASA and the European Commission, in accordance with the European RPAS Roadmap published in June 2013 (annex 1,Regulatory Roadmap, action line 13B). It constitutes one of the inputs to be considered in the forthcoming EASA RPAS rule-making process that should eventually lead to an Acceptable Means of Compliance (UAS/RPAS “AMC.1309″1) on this topic.

Since its inception, EUROCAE WG-73 has identified the complex issue of UAS / RPAS

Safety Objectives and Assessment Criteria as one of the crucial issues to be solved towards UAS / RPAS airworthiness certification, considering the impact on:

 The overall safety level of UAS/RPAS operations
 The architecture (e.g. redundancies and complexity) of the UAS/RPAS
 The related amount of substantiation, development and certification effort and subsequent economic repercussions.

Different approaches regarding corresponding major topics have been reviewed and debated within EUROCAE WG-73, whose members represent industry, authorities, research institutes, and airspace users

For each of these major topics, namely: overall guiding principle, interrelation between Airworthiness and Operational Aspects, Failure Severity Definition and Classification, Probability Requirements & Design Assurance Levels and UAS/RPAS

Categorization principles, the report provides the following:
 A statement of the issue
 A summary overview of different related approaches as proposed by
various stakeholders and debated within EUROCAE WG-73
 A subsequent recommendation.

EUROCAE WG-73 will remain active in the forthcoming EASA rule-making process and will recommend that any further detailed regulatory material to be proposed on this issue be measured against the different approaches and recommendations included in the report ER-010.

Any additional comment or request for clarification is welcome and may be sent to