Picture: Robin Latour of Hayward holds Sweet Angel after he arrived at SFO.

A New York fire captain's cat orphaned after the collapse of the World Trade Center has found a new home in Hayward.

Arthur, a.k.a "Sweet Angel," slept through his transcontinental trip under the American Airlines seat of a New York SPCA officer, making him the first ground-zero kitty to leave the East Coast.

"Oh, he really is a big boy!" said new owner Robin Latour, lifting the 20- pound, blinking feline out of his carrying case.

After 11th September, hundreds of downtown Manhattan dogs and cats were left behind in darkened apartment buildings when their owners perished in the rubble. Latour and her husband Derek saw a news story about the abandoned pets and decided to inquire by e-mail if they could adopt one to join their brood of three cats and two dogs.

Although most pets have already been claimed by relatives or locals who were willing to adopt, Sweet Angel was a special case, said Herb "Skip" Kellner, director of the Suffolk County SPCA in New York.

The cat was the pet of New York Fire Captain Marty Eagan Jr., and it lived with Eagan's mother on Long Island. After his death at the trade center, Eagan's two young children moved to grandma's house, but one of the kids is allergic to cats. Five-year-old Sweet Angel had to go.

"We tried finding a closer home, but many of the people who volunteered to adopt cats didn't return our calls," Kellner said. "People are funny. We got calls offering to take a black Lab, or a Boston Terrier, not many willing to take just anything. Then I remembered Robin's e-mail."

Latour said she just wanted to help - a dog or cat, it didn't matter. Most of her pack at home has been rescued. She found one of her dogs wandering in the desert and another at the pound. One kitten she scooped from a trash bin, another was a Hanukkah gift, and the third she offered to baby sit for a semester in college and its owner never came back.

Latour believes in fate, and she waited for it at San Francisco International Airport. It came in the form of Robert Galoppi, a volunteer SPCA officer, and a cat-carrying case.

American Airlines donated the ticket, and he made the flight from New York after staying up all night attending to the cracked paws and dusty eyes of search-and-rescue dogs at ground zero. He caught an afternoon flight back.

"It's very emotional work - we rescued two cats from a pizza parlor yesterday -- but it makes you feel good that you're doing something," Galoppi said. "You and I, we call the police or the fire department when we need help, but if cats or dogs get in trouble, who do they call?"

Sweet Angel was nonplussed by the human commotion surrounding his arrival at SFO. When Latour took him out of his case, he melted onto her shoulder and lazily put a paw on her arm.

"He feels squishy," Latour said.

Sweet Angel walked down the glossy wooden length of airport spokesman Ron Wilson's conference table and hid in a closet of pilot uniforms.

"We should get him out of there," said an office employee.

When it was time to go home, Sweet Angel let Latour put him back in the carrying case.

Her act of charity made her feel closer to New York, she said. Her husband Derek's grandfather was a fire captain in San Francisco, so she felt that taking Sweet Angel was meant to be.

"The family is going to send us a picture of Capt. Eagan, and we're going to frame it and put it up on the family picture wall," she said.

To donate to the pet rescue effort in New York, visit www.suffolkspca.org - E-mail Meredith May at mmay@sfchronicle.com.