ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to equip practicing engineers and managers with the information they need to develop safety-critical software for aviation. Safety-critical software includes software whose operation or failure to operate can lead to a hazardous state, software intended to recover from hazardous state, and software intended to mitigate the severity of an accident. The historical record for safety-critical software in civil aviation has been quite respectable. The variety of positions and systems has allowed experiencing and observing common issues, as well as effective solutions, for developing safetycritical software. The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers defines safety-critical software as: "software whose use in a system can result in unacceptable risk. It can be concluded that software by itself is neither safe nor unsafe; however, when it is part of a safety-critical system, it can cause or contribute to unsafe conditions. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
