FAA Publishes Risk Assessment Guidance for Public Comment

The FAA has published for comment a draft Transport Airplane Risk Assessment Methodology (“TARAM”) Handbook. They have also published a corollary draft policy statement. Both are currently available for public review and comment.

The two documents are meant to support risk assessment required by SMS rules, but (1) they are useful for performing risk assessment in other manufacturing contexts and (2) they are likely to influence FAA risk approaches for other Aircraft Certification Service projects, like PMAs, even when they do not directly apply.

The purpose of the public review and comment period is to identify problems and unintended consequences with the drafts, so those unintended consequences can be corrected before the final version is published. This is a great opportunity to help improve FAA policy so that it better supports our shared safety goals.

FAA Order 8110.107, Monitor Safety/Analyze Data (“MSAD”) , provides the requirements and guidance for a standardized, SMS-based, continued operational safety (“COS”) process. The TARAM outlined within the MSAD process is used by AIR certification branches for product-specific risk analysis to resolve COS issues for transport category airplanes. So this draft TARAM publication will likely influence the FAA’s MSAD process.

The MARPA Safety Committee is examining these drafts to assess whether any MARPA comments are required. We’d appreciate hearing comments from our members on these drafts by April 18, 2025.

Resources

• Draft Transport Airplane Risk Assessment Methodology (“TARAM”)
• Draft policy statement [PS-AIR-25-05-R1] on TARAM
• Comment Matrix