[justme]

Jetliner makes some good points about the APU and is very likely to be the true cause of the sudden loss of power. As for the "broken english" explanation, I'm not sure I'm buying it. The flights to the Bahamas would have no need for a foreign language speaker, so there would be no reason for broken english in the literal sense. More likely is the case that the flight attendant, or even the captain, weren't quite sure how to explain what was going on because they themselves aren't trained ramp agents. It would be like me trying to explain how to do brain surgery to you over the phone. As for the smoke smell, it is very likely that there was a smell of fuel or exhaust inside the airplane if in fact an airstart was used. The airstart is itself basically a jet engine that has an exhaust hose that hooks up to the airplane to help start the engines. It's blowing exhaust straight into the airplane because the same hose and hook-up, and internal piping is connected to the air conditioning system. It is very common to have that smell inside the airplane when an airstart is used. Fire trucks, especially at an airport as large as ATL are also a very common sight. I doubt they had anything to do with your flight. Jetliner is also correct when he says that there is no way the tower would have let you take off if the fire trucks had anything to do with you.