Actually, I was that controller......
There was no panic in my voice at all. Its called taking control of the RT and adopting a tone that informs pilots that they are to listen very carefully to what I am telling them because its important. There is no such thing as "hot air" in ATC
Crews were asked to hold position and maintain a degree of silence so that I could cope with arranging a radar heading for the Air Malta that was sat on the runway. This is necessary in order to visually switch traffic from the other approach. Putting an aircraft into the air that will conflict with other aircraft that are carrying out missed approaches is sometimes a necessary step in order to minimise the number of missed approaches from the other runway. The need for radio silence allows me to make phone calls and arrangements with the arrivals controller as to how we will proceed with this particular scenario and informs crews that a request for "number in sequence" will not be appreciated at this time. My respect goes out to all the crews who did exactly what I asked and allowed me to expeditiously accept traffic from the other runway. Anybody who saw it will agree that we were in a position to land on 27R within 60 secs..... Not bad considering!!!
Also, your tendency to over egg the facts disturbs me, particularly as you do not have access to all the information. The Air Malta and the Speedbird were never in close proximity. The closest they came to each other was at least 7 miles (well beyond the required sep standards). The good rate of climb was asked for so that 3000ft could be cleared rapidly on the outbound and allow for greater flexibility in the event of further missed approaches. In ATC this is a procedure known as "not dropping the arrivals guy in the $#1T". The crew were more than happy to accept the good rate of climb. The Air Malta tracked north westerly for approx 7 miles and then turned back towards the MID SID well clear of any other traffic.
Traffic is always switched back to the nominated landing runway as soon as possible when the runway is available for us. There are two main reasons for this:
1) We have a legally binding agreement to strictly adhere to runway alternation patterns
2) We can resume departing traffic on the other runway as soon as physically possible (Again a fact that I'm sure the quiet people in the holding area appreciated)
There was no drama. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing unsafe. No losses of separation. Nobody was seconds from disaster. I would suggest that you don't post rash and inflamatory comments on subjects that you know very little about and I strongly resent accusations of panic!!
My thanks go out to all my colleagues at work, our bretheren at TC and the crews who have had to endure a challenging day today. Respect!!