Narrative:

Severe enroute weather caused dispatch to file our flight in a circuitous route north; east then back west to destination; but our departure airport clearance gave us a reroute using the conventional direct routing. I notified dispatch of the reroute per SOP and he answered he needed my consent to ensure I wouldn't land overweight due to excess fuel. I gave my consent to be released with the excess fuel after a discussion with dispatch about the enroute weather radar and the possibility of having to turn north to avoid the weather. The weight and balance system rev 1 arrived showing us to be under structural; zero fuel and takeoff weights and we departed shortly thereafter. We took off at twenty eight minutes later. Shortly after takeoff dispatch notified us that operations had an alert warning that we had taken off overweight and that they were going to self-disclose to the FAA. He had us double check our weights and we were looking fine. The reroute assigned by clearance was executed with only a few deviations enroute. In-flight monitoring of our fuel state predicted that we would land a few hundred pounds overweight due to fuel so we notified center and were cleared for an early descent to burn off excess fuel. Landing was delayed also due to vectoring behind other traffic and we landed under maximum landing weight with no further problems noted. [There was a] failure of operations to monitor our flight and notify us of foreseen problems in a timely manner. Operations and all persons responsible for inputting information to the weight and balance system and monitoring the results should be cognizant of any problems and notify the captain of the flight as soon as possible if a problem is noted. For operations to wait almost 50 minutes after we received our weight and balance system and clocked out before notifying us of a problem is unsatisfactory. There are three possibilities of what happened here: 1. The weight and balance system software is flawed. 2. Negligence on the part of the operations personnel in noticing the problem. 3. Operations personnel deliberately waiting until the flight took off before self-disclosing the problem and notifying the crew so as to avoid further delay of the flight.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An EMB145 crew was notified after takeoff that the aircraft may have been overweight for takeoff and subsequently had to descend early to burn down to landing weight.

Narrative: Severe enroute weather caused Dispatch to file our flight in a circuitous route north; east then back west to destination; but our departure airport Clearance gave us a reroute using the conventional direct routing. I notified Dispatch of the reroute per SOP and he answered he needed my consent to ensure I wouldn't land overweight due to excess fuel. I gave my consent to be released with the excess fuel after a discussion with Dispatch about the enroute weather radar and the possibility of having to turn north to avoid the weather. The Weight and Balance System REV 1 arrived showing us to be under structural; zero fuel and takeoff weights and we departed shortly thereafter. We took off at twenty eight minutes later. Shortly after takeoff Dispatch notified us that Operations had an alert warning that we had taken off overweight and that they were going to self-disclose to the FAA. He had us double check our weights and we were looking fine. The reroute assigned by Clearance was executed with only a few deviations enroute. In-flight monitoring of our fuel state predicted that we would land a few hundred pounds overweight due to fuel so we notified Center and were cleared for an early descent to burn off excess fuel. Landing was delayed also due to vectoring behind other traffic and we landed under maximum landing weight with no further problems noted. [There was a] failure of Operations to monitor our flight and notify us of foreseen problems in a timely manner. Operations and all persons responsible for inputting information to the Weight and Balance System and monitoring the results should be cognizant of any problems and notify the Captain of the flight ASAP if a problem is noted. For Operations to wait almost 50 minutes after we received our Weight and Balance System and clocked out before notifying us of a problem is unsatisfactory. There are three possibilities of what happened here: 1. The Weight and Balance System software is flawed. 2. Negligence on the part of the Operations personnel in noticing the problem. 3. Operations personnel deliberately waiting until the flight took off before self-disclosing the problem and notifying the crew so as to avoid further delay of the flight.

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.