In this paper, we propose an impact finite element(FE) model for an airbag landing buffer system. First, an impact FE model has been formulated for a typical airbag landing buffer system. We use the independence of the structure FE model from the full impact FE model to develop a hierarchical updating scheme for the recovery module FE model and the airbag system FE model.Second, we define impact responses at key points to compare the computational and experimental results to resolve the inconsistency between the experimental data sampling frequency and experimental triggering. To determine the typical characteristics of the impact dynamics response of the airbag landing buffer system, we present the impact response confidence factors(IRCFs) to evaluate how consistent the computational and experiment results are. An error function is defined between the experimental and computational results at key points of the impact response(KPIR)to serve as a modified objective function. A radial basis function(RBF) is introduced to construct updating variables for a surrogate model for updating the objective function, thereby converting the FE model updating problem to a soluble optimization problem. Finally, the developed method has been validated using an experimental and computational study on the impact dynamics of a classic airbag landing buffer system. In this paper, we propose an impact finite element (FE) model for an airbag landing buffer system. First, an impact FE model has been formulated for a typical airbag landing buffer system. We use the independence of the structure FE model from the full impact FE model to develop a hierarchical updating scheme for the recovery module FE model and the airbag system FE model. Second, we define impact responses at key points to compare the computational and experimental results to resolve the inconsistency between the experimental data sampling frequency and experimental triggering. To determine the typical characteristics of the impact dynamics response of the airbag landing buffer system, we present the impact response confidence factors (IRCFs) to evaluate how consistent the computational and experiment results are. An error function is defined between the experimental and computational results at key points of the impact response (KPIR) to serve as a modified objective function. A radial ba sis function (RBF) is introduced to construct updating variables for a surrogate model for updating the objective function, thereby converting the FE model updating problem to a soluble optimization problem. Finally, the developed method has been validated using an experimental and computational study on the impact dynamics of a classic airbag landing buffer system.