EMB ERJ 145 ER/LR
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness; Time Pressure
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical
Flight Crew Rejected Takeoff; Flight Crew Returned To Gate; General Maintenance Action
Aircraft
Powered up for takeoff roll and as the thrust levers hit the detent; received the EICAS message: BLD VLV 1 FAIL. As this was prior to 80 KTS (don't think airspeed even registered yet) I decided to abort. We alerted Tower who gave us taxi instructions. As there was no problem taxiing the airplane; I accepted the instructions and notified Maintenance. [I] was advised to call Maintenance Control at headquarters which I did and was talked through a runup that failed to yield the desired results. I was instructed by Maintenance Control to return to the gate. We called Station Maintenance then called Operations and notified them. Received a gate and returned. Operations didn't want to deplane until Maintenance checked things out. Maintenance said it was a cracked high stage valve. It was replaced and we left this time uneventfully. The piece just happened to break at that time. I don't believe anyone was at fault here; sometimes mechanical things just break and I'm just glad it was a low speed event.
An ERJ145 Captain performed a slow speed reject because the EICAS alerted BLD VLV 1 FAIL and at the gate the cracked high stage bleed valve was replaced.