Narrative:

After arrival at the gate; the gentleman who parked us and his subordinate came to the flight deck and were quite concerned. He indicated that there were two main landing gear tires and a red comat (company material) bag in the forward baggage compartment. The tags indicated that they were supposed to have been delivered to our departure station by an inbound flight. The tire tags indicated that the weight of each tire was 350 lbs. I guessed the weight of the comat bag at 1 pound. I then grabbed my weight manifest and saw that it was listed to have only 13 bags at 450 pounds in the forward bin. I then called the company and talked with the chief pilot's office and asked him what he wanted me to do. Since we were going on he asked us to remove the tires and comat and have them put on the first flight back. I advised the ground personnel and they removed the tires and comat.I then looked at our performance data and determined that even though we were carrying 701 pounds more in the forward baggage compartment; we had not exceeded any limitations for takeoff or landing weight limit of the aircraft. Therefore I did not feel the need to write-up the aircraft for an overweight landing and we continued on without interruption.there are probably more reasons then I can name for why this happened. We failed to find the tires in the baggage compartment because when we arrived at the gate; the boarding/loading process had already started and we had to stop boarding to get on the aircraft and put our overnight bags in the back. When my first officer did his preflight the forward baggage compartment was closed. He said he opened it and there was a wall of bags on the forward side of the door preventing him from seeing the tires or the comat bag. So why this happened probably has something to do with the same flight number for the flight inbound as it was for our outbound flight. That may have confused the ramp crew and the maintenance department procedures for moving tires around the system.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A B717 flight crew was advised by arrival station ground personnel that they had two main gear tires in the forward cargo compartment that should have been removed at their departure station.

Narrative: After arrival at the gate; the gentleman who parked us and his subordinate came to the flight deck and were quite concerned. He indicated that there were two main landing gear tires and a red comat (company material) bag in the forward baggage compartment. The tags indicated that they were supposed to have been delivered to our departure station by an inbound flight. The tire tags indicated that the weight of each tire was 350 lbs. I guessed the weight of the comat bag at 1 pound. I then grabbed my weight manifest and saw that it was listed to have only 13 bags at 450 pounds in the forward bin. I then called the Company and talked with the Chief Pilot's office and asked him what he wanted me to do. Since we were going on he asked us to remove the tires and comat and have them put on the first flight back. I advised the ground personnel and they removed the tires and comat.I then looked at our performance data and determined that even though we were carrying 701 pounds more in the forward baggage compartment; we had not exceeded any limitations for takeoff or landing weight limit of the aircraft. Therefore I did not feel the need to write-up the aircraft for an overweight landing and we continued on without interruption.There are probably more reasons then I can name for why this happened. We failed to find the tires in the baggage compartment because when we arrived at the gate; the boarding/loading process had already started and we had to stop boarding to get on the aircraft and put our overnight bags in the back. When my First Officer did his preflight the forward baggage compartment was closed. He said he opened it and there was a wall of bags on the forward side of the door preventing him from seeing the tires or the comat bag. So why this happened probably has something to do with the same flight number for the flight inbound as it was for our outbound flight. That may have confused the ramp crew and the maintenance department procedures for moving tires around the system.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.