EMB ERJ 145 ER/LR
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical; Inflight Event / Encounter Fuel Issue
Flight Crew Landed As Precaution; Flight Crew Returned To Departure Airport
Aircraft
After taking off and passing roughly 10K in the climb; the FA called up to inform us that we had fuel coming out of the right wing. Deadheading crew members and passengers noticed it. Also; when we were handed off to Center in the climb out; we were informed that airport operations had been notified that our aircraft was observed by someone on the ground that said they saw what looked like smoke coming from the aircraft after takeoff. They had called Center and told them to tell us. The 'smoke' must have been the fuel leaking from the right wing. We were probably not more than 50 miles from [departure airport] at this point. We made the decision to air return back to the airport. I was PF and talked to ATC while the FO (PM) handled all the landing preparations; and sent messages to Dispatch and MX to make them aware of our return. We noticed that we would be about 2000 lbs over landing weight; we informed Approach. We held for approximately 20 minutes at the outer maker for the ILS to burn enough gas to be under the max landing weight. I don't feel that we as a crew made any errors. We communicated our plans and were on the same page as far as an air return; getting the aircraft ready to land and make all preparations to do so. The threats could have been a relatively high workload situation initially when being turned around to [the departure airport] and making all the preparations and contacting company about our situation. Which was managed appropriately.
EMB-145XR Captain returned to the departure airport after a fuel leak was reportedly observed by passengers and airport ground personnel.