Narrative:

Ground crew in ZZZ gave us our load sheet. At that time the flight crew noticed that both the forward and aft cargo bins were over loaded. The forward cargo bin was overloaded by 1 bag and the aft over loaded by 16 pounds of cargo. Flight crew told ground crew to take out the 16 pounds of cargo and 2 bags from the aft cargo and move 1 bag from the forward cargo bin to the aft so that both cargo areas would be within limits and all passengers would have their gate checked bags. At that time the flight crew thought they were in compliance with the weight limitations of the aircraft. After landing I was preforming a cold weather preflight and a ramp agent asked me how many bags I was told that there were in the aft cargo and I responded 83 as indicated on the load sheet. Ramp agent informed me that there were in fact 91 bags in the aft cargo (67 regular; 5 heavy; 14 gate checks) it was never the intention of the flight crew to take a flight with an over loaded cargo load! Ramp crew in ZZZ unable to count the number of bags in cargo and knowing how many bags it could hold. All ramp crew re-trained on the Q400 cargo limits.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Q400 Captain discovers his aircraft is incorrectly loaded by reading the load sheet and asks the ground crew to remove two bags and 16 pounds of cargo. Upon arrival at destination the Captain is informed that there are 91 bags in the aft cargo compartment and only 83 showing on the load sheet.

Narrative: Ground crew in ZZZ gave us our load sheet. At that time the flight crew noticed that both the forward and aft cargo bins were over loaded. The forward cargo bin was overloaded by 1 bag and the aft over loaded by 16 pounds of cargo. Flight crew told ground crew to take out the 16 pounds of cargo and 2 bags from the aft cargo and move 1 bag from the forward cargo bin to the aft so that both cargo areas would be within limits and all passengers would have their gate checked bags. At that time the flight crew thought they were in compliance with the weight limitations of the aircraft. After landing I was preforming a cold weather preflight and a ramp agent asked me how many bags I was told that there were in the aft cargo and I responded 83 as indicated on the load sheet. Ramp agent informed me that there were in fact 91 bags in the aft cargo (67 regular; 5 heavy; 14 gate checks) It was never the intention of the flight crew to take a flight with an over loaded cargo load! Ramp crew in ZZZ unable to count the number of bags in cargo and knowing how many bags it could hold. All ramp crew re-trained on the Q400 cargo limits.

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.