Abstract: With the extensive applications of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in military and civil fields, how to ensure the safety of UAV while completing the presupposed task becomes one of the research hotspots in the field of flight control area in recent years. Based on the review and summary of the existing research results at home and abroad, this paper summarizes the research status and future development directions in the safety flight control field of UAV. Firstly, the flight safety requirements of UAVs in different mission scenarios are summarized. Then, the safety flight control problems of UAV are mainly summarized into four aspects: safety envelope protection control, safety control under different constraints, safety control under system faults and attack, and safety control for UAVs swarm, and the key control techniques and their advantages and disadvantages are described and analyzed respectively. Finally, the future development directions of UAV safety flight control are prospected.