Widebody; Low Wing; 3 Turbojet Eng
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Human-Machine Interface
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Flight Crew Became Reoriented; General Maintenance Action
Aircraft; Human Factors; Weather
ATC gave us a late crossing restriction and asked us to 'do our best' to meet it.  I started to deploy the speed brakes immediately.  It was very difficult to move the speed brake handle.  Rather than analyzing the cause for the binding I turned all my attention to moving the handle and forced it to move.  The FO was first to notice the rolling motion of the aircraft because I was facing the handle it was so hard to move.  He immediately took control and notified me that he was kicking off the autopilot.  That was when I became aware that the aircraft had started a roll to the left even though there was no sensation of rolling.  We had gotten to 35 degrees (plus) of bank when I took back control; stowed the speed brake handle and worked to roll the plane back to level.  It was very difficult to do.  It turns out the left spoiler would deploy but the right would not.  The spoilers deployed normally on touchdown and we tried them on taxi in with normal indications.  Wrote it up and maintenance checked the systems and found no abnormalities.  They suspected icing due to the rain accumulation [on the ground] and the flight above the freezing level. Water accumulation (most likely) set up the event and caused the flight control binding.  Don't know how those flight control bays are supposed to be drained but there may be some clogging of that system if there is one.   My determination to move the speed brake handle to make the tight altitude constraint was a big mistake.  I should have analyzed instead of forced. The FO's quick decisive action prevented a situation from deteriorating.  With the limited flight control authority to roll back to the right; if he had not taken some timely action this might have become unrecoverable. Check drains on all planes exposed to water accumulation. Don't force flight controls if there is binding.
McDonnell Douglas Heavy Captain experiences difficulty moving the speedbrake handle in flight and applies more pressure. The result is a roll to the left which is first detected by the First Officer and corrected. During approach the spoilers are armed and function normally on landing.