The present invention is a safety hook (12, 12′) having a wire spring latch (26, 26′). The wire spring latch (26, 26′) is a wire loop pawl. The safety hook (12, 12′) is made of a heavy gauge wire form material, which is preferably bent only to form first and second ends (14, 14′, 16, 16′), a chain link securing end (14, 14′) and a hook opening end (16, 16′), respectively. The wire loop pawl (26, 26′) is preferably a rod of elastically deformable material, bent to form an open loop (28, 28′) and bent-over ends (32, 32′, 34, 34′) about which the pawl (26, 26′) pivots with respect to the body (12, 12″) of the safety hook (10, 10′) when the latch (26, 26′) is deformed and forced away from a distal end (38, 38′) of the hook opening end (16, 16′) of the safety hook (10,10′). The bent over ends (32, 32′, 34, 34′) of the wire loop pawl (26, 26′) are not coaxial. The wire loop pawl (26, 26′) may be deformed in such a way as to open the safety hook (10, 10′), but the latch (26, 26′) is heavily spring biased up against an inside (37, 37′) of the distal end (38, 38′) of the safety hook (10, 10′).