With respect, and a conversation I've had with our fine ATC colleagues offline; relaying details OF any emergency is third on a list of the one thing I care about.
neilk,
Also with respect, you missed the point of my post. The pilot did not declare an emergency and the controller had to drag some details out of the pilot, in order to determine if he should direct the traffic on final to go around.
Of course flying the aircraft comes first, but there were two pilots and one of them did have time for the “communicate” part of the saying. If he had just said “Returning for an emergency landing on runway 6. Standby.” all would have been clear from the start.
To be fair, I think the controller should have said in his first response “Are you declaring an emergency?”