Narrative:

Shortly before landing; the cabin area around the 3L and 3R doors smelled strongly like vomit or sweaty feet/old socks. I covered my nose with my necktie at the 3R jumpseat. I had taken my jumpseat about 3-5 minutes before landing after I had completed my final safety checks. That's when I noticed the smell. I deliberated for a moment about whether to call the pilots during sterile cockpit or whether to let them know on the ground. I decided on the latter. I failed to call the purser before touchdown and inform him of the smell. I had smelt something similar but much less intense during takeoff and had not found it noteworthy then. As far as I am aware; there was no such smell in coach during the flight. None of the passengers in the area seemed sick; no one from the crew was aware of any passenger having thrown up. After landing; before I could take the issue further; a debriefing by the captain in first class was announced. I couldn't hear much of what he was saying because by the time I arrived he was talking to station mechanics. Apparently; during the flight; that same smell had gone to nearly unbearable extremes inside the cockpit. The copilot later on the remote gate shuttle bus explained that they had several times considered diverting the flight. This was the first time I heard of that. I asked the purser on the bus if he had known of any of this in flight. He said no. There was also talk on the bus that one of the auxiliary power units had failed in flight. I had not heard of that before either. I was not asked by any of the pilots in flight if there was a strange smell in the (economy) cabin; nor am I aware that anyone of my coach coworkers was consulted. Inside the terminal; I went to a restroom because I felt the unusual urge to blow my nose; clear my throat and spit out the saliva several times. I drove home in my car after the flight and stopped 20 minutes later at an autobahn restaurant due to a headache. After some research at home; I am concerned that I have been exposed to (tcp) contaminated; toxic bleed air through the air conditioning system on today's flight. I would like to be informed what the exact findings (by maintenance or whoever is in charge) were as to why a severe smell was present in the cockpit and in the cabin on today's flight and what has been done about the incident. The airplane was supposed to go on to ZZZ today; according to the ZZZZ ground agent.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A B777 Flight Attendant reported detecting a sweaty feet/old sock odor toward the flight's end and during taxi. The Captain held a post flight debrief and announced the crew considered a diversion because of a strong flight station odor. Someone mentioned an inflight APU failure.

Narrative: Shortly before landing; the cabin area around the 3L and 3R doors smelled strongly like vomit or sweaty feet/old socks. I covered my nose with my necktie at the 3R jumpseat. I had taken my jumpseat about 3-5 minutes before landing after I had completed my final safety checks. That's when I noticed the smell. I deliberated for a moment about whether to call the pilots during sterile cockpit or whether to let them know on the ground. I decided on the latter. I failed to call the purser before touchdown and inform him of the smell. I had smelt something similar but much less intense during takeoff and had not found it noteworthy then. As far as I am aware; there was no such smell in coach during the flight. None of the passengers in the area seemed sick; no one from the crew was aware of any passenger having thrown up. After landing; before I could take the issue further; a debriefing by the captain in first class was announced. I couldn't hear much of what he was saying because by the time I arrived he was talking to station mechanics. Apparently; during the flight; that same smell had gone to nearly unbearable extremes inside the cockpit. The copilot later on the remote gate shuttle bus explained that they had several times considered diverting the flight. This was the first time I heard of that. I asked the purser on the bus if he had known of any of this in flight. He said no. There was also talk on the bus that one of the auxiliary power units had failed in flight. I had not heard of that before either. I was not asked by any of the pilots in flight if there was a strange smell in the (economy) cabin; nor am I aware that anyone of my coach coworkers was consulted. Inside the terminal; I went to a restroom because I felt the unusual urge to blow my nose; clear my throat and spit out the saliva several times. I drove home in my car after the flight and stopped 20 minutes later at an autobahn restaurant due to a headache. After some research at home; I am concerned that I have been exposed to (TCP) contaminated; toxic bleed air through the air conditioning system on today's flight. I would like to be informed what the exact findings (by maintenance or whoever is in charge) were as to why a severe smell was present in the cockpit and in the cabin on today's flight and what has been done about the incident. The airplane was supposed to go on to ZZZ today; according to the ZZZZ ground agent.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site 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.