Narrative:

On the climb out departing 15L out of iah we were on the ritaa SID. After checking on with dept. Control I understood our clearance to be 'climb via the sid; except climb and maintain 16000.' I was confident that is what I heard and I responded with 'climb via sid except climb and maintain 16000.' after discussing it with the capt I asked and he approved to delete the altitude restrictions at the fix with the 4000B (ttaps) restriction and the 5000B (botll) restriction. We continued a normal climb to 16000. There was no loss of seperation from other aircraft; no tas; no ras and no comments from ATC about our altitude. ATC told us to contact houston center and we continued a normal flight. After discussing it with the captain; he and I decided out of an abundance of caution we should file an fsap in case we misunderstood our climb out clearance. I am confident that is what I heard and what I responded with; but after spending the rest of the flight going over it in my head; I realize that may not have been exactly what the controller said and what I responded with. I just remember reading the clearance back to ATC and thinking 'we can delete those at or below restrictions'; therefore thinking we had received a 'climb and maintain' clearance.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A B737 flight crew departing IAH on the RITAA RNAV SID off Runway 15 questioned whether ATC's clearance to '...climb via the departure except maintain 16;000 feet' removed the restrictions at or below four and five thousand feet at TTAPS and BOTLL respectively. They opted to delete the restrictions.

Narrative: On the climb out departing 15L out of IAH we were on the RITAA SID. After checking on with Dept. Control I understood our clearance to be 'climb via the sid; except climb and maintain 16000.' I was confident that is what I heard and I responded with 'climb via sid except climb and maintain 16000.' After discussing it with the Capt I asked and he approved to delete the altitude restrictions at the fix with the 4000B (TTAPS) restriction and the 5000B (BOTLL) restriction. We continued a normal climb to 16000. There was no loss of seperation from other aircraft; no TAs; no RAs and no comments from ATC about our altitude. ATC told us to contact Houston center and we continued a normal flight. After discussing it with the Captain; he and I decided out of an abundance of caution we should file an FSAP in case we misunderstood our climb out clearance. I am confident that is what I heard and what I responded with; but after spending the rest of the flight going over it in my head; I realize that may not have been EXACTLY what the controller said and what I responded with. I just remember reading the clearance back to ATC and thinking 'we can delete those at or below restrictions'; therefore thinking we had received a 'Climb and maintain' clearance.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.