Narrative:

During preflight stab cruise trim was found to be inop in the nose up direction. Maintenance was called & problem written up in the maintenance log. Maintenance found the MEL & showed the crew. It could be deffered but tried to fix the problem but weren't able. There were operational restrictions which included autopilot inop; flight restricted to 15000 ft; airspeed 250 KTS and a max aft cg. We called operations and advised them of the problem. They said they were working with maintenance control and the duty officer to try and find a way we could fly the aircraft from ZZZ to ZZZ1. A solution was found for the routing and the outbound flight would take 4 hrs and 5 min at 14000 ft and 250 KTS. I failed to look up the restrictions under autopilot inop which would have been 2 legs of 1 and a half hours or one leg of 3 hours.our scheduling told us we would be returning to ZZZ as soon as possible. I called scheduling and told them we wouldn't be legal to fly back to ZZZ because 8 in 24 would be exceeded and wanted to talk to the duty officer. He said to have a conference call with myself; himself and the scheduling supervisor before talking to the duty officer. They convinced me we were legal because scheduled block of the original trip was for less than 8 in 24 so we could leave and get the required rest in ZZZ. We departed and landed in ZZZ. Weather was clear the entire route and at both airports both ways.lessons learned:(1) when confronted with an MEL operation limitation ensure to reference and check all other equipment MEL restrictions. In this case resulting autopilot inop flight hour limitation.(2) when confronted with exceeding 8 hrs in 24; ensure you talk to the duty officer directly and don't let anyone tell you its ok as long as you take off prior to exceeding 8 hrs. If you are going to exceed 8 in 24 don't go.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B727 flight crew was talked into exceeding 8 hours in 24 after MEL restriction greatly increased the flight time for their two leg trip.

Narrative: During preflight stab cruise trim was found to be inop in the nose up direction. Maintenance was called & problem written up in the maintenance log. Maintenance found the MEL & showed the crew. It could be deffered but tried to fix the problem but weren't able. There were operational restrictions which included autopilot inop; flight restricted to 15000 FT; airspeed 250 KTS and a max aft CG. We called operations and advised them of the problem. They said they were working with Maintenance Control and the duty officer to try and find a way we could fly the aircraft from ZZZ to ZZZ1. A solution was found for the routing and the outbound flight would take 4 hrs and 5 min at 14000 FT and 250 KTS. I failed to look up the restrictions under autopilot inop which would have been 2 legs of 1 and a half hours or one leg of 3 hours.Our scheduling told us we would be returning to ZZZ ASAP. I called Scheduling and told them we wouldn't be legal to fly back to ZZZ because 8 in 24 would be exceeded and wanted to talk to the duty officer. He said to have a conference call with myself; himself and the scheduling supervisor before talking to the duty officer. They convinced me we were legal because scheduled block of the original trip was for less than 8 in 24 so we could leave and get the required rest in ZZZ. We departed and landed in ZZZ. Weather was clear the entire route and at both airports both ways.Lessons Learned:(1) When confronted with an MEL operation limitation ensure to reference and check all other equipment MEL restrictions. In this case resulting autopilot inop flight hour limitation.(2) When confronted with exceeding 8 hrs in 24; ensure you talk to the duty officer directly and don't let anyone tell you its OK as long as you take off prior to exceeding 8 hrs. If you are going to exceed 8 in 24 don't go.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.