Narrative:

About 1 hour into the flight; the captain contacted dispatch to set up a phone patch with maintenance control due to an engine bleed valve locking shut. Maintenance was unable to find a way to re-open it; and the flight manual prohibited flying into icing conditions. The flight was getting near the ETOPS environment; and there was icing forecast for the ETOPS diversion scenario over most of the russian route. I tried with the help of two managers to build a diversion route to sfo using southern ETOPS alternates that were out of the icing conditions; but there was not enough fuel onboard to make this work. We also considered icn but that would have been difficult to get around north. Korea's airspace. We also avoided nrt at that time because there had been some icing reported near the airport earlier on shift. We then tried building a route to go to hnl; but by the time we sent the route to the aircraft; they were in russian airspace. The russians wouldn't allow them to do this. At this point; we decided that a return to the field in pek was the best option; so the captain began coordinating with the russians to return to pek on the same route they departed on. This was the time I was leaving and turning over to dayshift. I was told after the fact that the flight was denied entry by the chinese; and they were forced to make an emergency landing in nrt after curfew.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: The failure of a pneumatic bleed valve and; thus; the loss of pneumatic anti-ice systems on a polar ETOPS operation forced an eventual emergency landing because the flight could not be continued due to all ETOPS diversion stations forecasting known icing conditions.

Narrative: About 1 hour into the flight; the Captain contacted Dispatch to set up a phone patch with Maintenance Control due to an engine bleed valve locking shut. Maintenance was unable to find a way to re-open it; and the flight manual prohibited flying into icing conditions. The flight was getting near the ETOPS environment; and there was icing forecast for the ETOPS diversion scenario over most of the Russian route. I tried with the help of two managers to build a diversion route to SFO using southern ETOPS alternates that were out of the icing conditions; but there was not enough fuel onboard to make this work. We also considered ICN but that would have been difficult to get around N. Korea's airspace. We also avoided NRT at that time because there had been some icing reported near the airport earlier on shift. We then tried building a route to go to HNL; but by the time we sent the route to the aircraft; they were in Russian airspace. The Russians wouldn't allow them to do this. At this point; we decided that a return to the field in PEK was the best option; so the Captain began coordinating with the Russians to return to PEK on the same route they departed on. This was the time I was leaving and turning over to dayshift. I was told after the fact that the flight was denied entry by the Chinese; and they were forced to make an emergency landing in NRT after curfew.

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.