In this paper, a burst-error-correcting adaptive decoding in TCM(Trellis Coded Modulation) is presented that combines maximun-likelihood decoding with a burst error detection scheme. The decoder usually operates as a Viterbi decoder and switches to a burst-error-correcting mode whenever error patterns uncorrectable by Viterbi decoder are detected. It is demonstrated that TCM using adaptive decoding method outperforms a traditional TCM on the multi-path fading channels that are busty in nature, which are like the channel environments of mobile communications.