EMB ERJ 145 ER/LR
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical; Inflight Event / Encounter Fuel Issue
Flight Crew Returned To Departure Airport; General Declared Emergency
Aircraft
As a result of an air return for a significant fuel leak; we had to land overweight. The First Officer did an excellent job with the descent upon landing; well within the 300 FT per minute standard.Upon initial climbout; Tower informed us; 'You have quite a plume trailing from your left wing.' I immediately looked and confirmed it out my window. It looked like fuel to me; and a significant amount. I advised the Tower we wanted to return and he said to call Departure and he would let them know. We contacted Departure; and slowed to 200 KTS while on a downwind. We did the After-Takeoff Checklist; calculated the landing data; called Operations and then proceeded with all the arrival checklists starting with the in-range. We turned base for an expended final and conducted the suspected fuel leak and overweight landing QRH. Tower had declared an emergency for us; so we reported the souls on-board. The First Officer did an excellent landing well below 300 FT per minute. ARFF (Airport Rescue and Fire Fighters) followed us to the gate without further incident. Later; the Chief Pilot informed us after inspection there was a leak letting fuel vent.
We pushed back from the gate normally after a maintenance delay for an APU bleed leak. We taxied out and took off normally. Immediately after takeoff; the Tower advised us that we were 'venting something pretty good' off our left wing. The Captain looked out of his window and confirmed this. There was clearly fluid pouring out of the bottom of the left wing; just inside the aileron. We advised the Tower we would be air returning. He assigned us a heading and handed us off to Approach. We proceeded to run the appropriate checklists and set up for an overweight landing. We confirmed there was no sign of any type fluid leak on our instruments; but decided the safest action was to return and land based on what we were seeing and what the Tower had reported. After finishing the checklists; we landed overweight and returned to the gate with no issues. There we had the aircraft inspected and later changed planes and completed the flight.
On takeoff the crew of an Embraer 145 was notified by ATC that there was a fluid emanating from the left wing; which was confirmed by the Captain. The crew elected to return for a safe landing. Later it was confirmed that fuel had vented from the left wing tank.