## 1 Introduction 

The Safety Risk Management Guidance for System Acquisitions (SRMGSA) defines the scope, purpose, objectives, and required activities of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) system safety effort as it applies to Safety Risk Management (SRM) for all system acquisitions that provide Communication, Navigation, and Surveillance; Air Traffic Management; and other services in the National Airspace System (NAS). 1 The SRMGSA applies to all personnel in the Air Traffic Organization (ATO) performing SRM analyses/assessments on system acquisitions and is of interest to the Assistant Administrator of the Office of NextGen (ANG), the Office of Airports, and other FAA Lines of Business (LOBs). 

The SRMGSA embodies and contributes to the spirit of the FAA’s safety culture. A positive safety culture places a pervasive emphasis on safety and promotes: 

• An inherently questioning attitude, 

• A commitment to excellence, 

• The fostering of personal accountability and corporate self-regulation in safety matters. 

## 1.1 Purpose 

The SRMGSA provides a framework and further process definition to execute SRM throughout the entire lifecycle of a system or product. This framework is made formal in the Program Safety Plan (PSP) developed by the Program Office (PO) and the system developer’s System Safety Program Plan (SSPP), as contractually required. (Refer to Appendix A for guidance on developing and implementing PSPs. Refer to Appendix B for a description of the SSPP that the system developer submits.) The SRMGSA follows systems engineering principles to achieve the SRM objectives defined in the various FAA publications listed in Section 3. 

A resistance to complacency, 

The involvement and accountability of management and labor, and 

The purpose of the SRMGSA is to meet the requirements of and implement the policy stated in FAA Acquisition Management System (AMS), Section 4.12, National Airspace System Safety Management System . This section of the AMS requires the application of a Safety Management System (SMS), referring to the ATO SMS Manual and the SRMGSA as governing documents with which compliance is mandatory. Therefore, the SRMGSA provides the guidelines that must be used by the ATO and other organizations when conducting SRM in acquisitions. In addition, FAA Order 1100.161, Air Traffic Safety Oversight , focuses the Air Traffic Safety Oversight Service's (AOV's) efforts on the acquisition and implementation of new systems to include the modernization/upgrade of legacy NAS systems. Per AOV Safety Oversight Circular 09-11, Safety Oversight Standards , new acquisitions are required to follow the guidance of the AMS and meet the program requirements defined in the SMS Manual and the SRMGSA. 

The conduct of SRM maintains or improves the safety of the NAS by identifying the safety risk associated with making NAS changes and providing that input to decision makers responsible for managing and mitigating this safety risk. When system 2  safety hazards are identified, the 

