MD-82
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Total 18000
Troubleshooting; Time Pressure; Workload
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical
Flight Crew Executed Go Around / Missed Approach; Flight Crew Landed As Precaution; Flight Crew FLC complied w / Automation / Advisory; General Maintenance Action; General Release Refused / Aircraft Not Accepted
Aircraft
Circle to land 13 in VMC conditions. During the breakaway maneuver half way through the circle [procedure] I realized that I could only trim back and not forward. Tried copilot yoke switch; Suitcase handles and secondary trim to no avail. It trimmed back and not forward. We briefly did the QRH Checklist and in less time than it took to read this we were landing. 'Aviate; Navigate then Communicate'; no time to declare an emergency as we landed right away. The airplane was perfectly trimmed (trim back during landing) and did NOT want to execute a go-around with a jammed trim unable to trim forward. Textbook wise I SHOULD have declared an emergency to be ready to use my Captain's authority and I'm never shy about declaring emergencies BUT believe me this happened very quickly the airport was fine and we had already gotten our clearance to land and I just wanted to concentrate on landing ASAP and not experimenting around with the horizontal stabilizer trim in flight (similar to other MD-80 trim/jackscrew incidents).I was subsequently able to fix the problem by refusing the offending airplane and getting a new one for my leg back.
I started the stabilizer inoperative QRH procedure but our altitude; position; the fact that we were currently correctly trimmed and time remaining made it obvious that the safest course was to normally land the aircraft.
A MD-80 Captain detected an inoperative elevator trim but because the aircraft was in a circling approach VMC with the airport in sight; no emergency was declared and flight landed as soon as possible in trim.