Incident Description
During the takeoff roll, the flightcrew was unable to rotate the airplane. The takeoff was aborted uneventfully.
Examination Findings
Examination of the airplane revealed that when the elevator trim wheel in the cockpit was positioned to neutral, the elevator trim was actually in the full nose-down position. The elevator trim wheel could not be physically moved lower than 3 units of nose up trim.
Maintenance Context
The incident flight was the first flight after maintenance, in which the elevator trim wheel was removed and reinstalled. The maintenance technician did not index the trim wheel when he removed it, and reinstalled the trim wheel incorrectly. In addition, the maintenance documentation did not contain a procedure to remove and reinstall the elevator trim wheel.
Post-Maintenance Actions
Following the maintenance, no functional check of the elevator trim system was performed.
Preflight Inspection
When the captain performed a preflight inspection of the airplane, he did not set the elevator trim wheel to the setting prescribed on the preflight checklist, and he failed to detect the error.