In this paper, three different differentiation schemes are studied for the development of a generic fault detection scheme. The case of runawayfault is investigated. A runaway is an uncontrolled deflection of a control surface which can go until its physical limitation if it remains undetected. The proposed technique is a signal-based one that relaxes the need of an accurate actuator modelling. The core element of the proposed fault detection scheme is a differentiation scheme. In this context, a comparative study is made by using noisy signals. Note that the assessment of differentiation is done by using the Absolute Mean Error (AME) ratio, the percentage Variance Accounted For (VAF) and the Index of Agreement (IoA).