why are languages like this one (Lustre) used for critical control software.

Because some software tools (or even methodology) can help in partially proving the correctness of the code w.r.t. some formalized specifications, and because some other (or same, e.g. SCADE) software tools can generate some C code (which would be "safer" and perhaps faster than what hand-written code can realistically achieve) from Lustre source.

Read about static source program analysis.

Notice that some tools exist to help prove that some C programs (with a restricted coding style) are somehow "safe" or "correct" w.r.t. some formalized specification; e.g. look into Frama-C.

Also, recall that some programming languages subset (e.g. most of Ocaml, thanks to it type system, but without its infamous Obj.magic trick) can "guarantee" by design that your program won't crash (w.r.t. some hypothesis).

But remember: there is No Silver Bullet: Because of undecidability of the Halting Problem, you cannot hope proving entirely any software (and you cannot hope formalizing entirely its specification and its environment; you need to accept that software are abstractions ...)

Read also Lattner's blog: What Every C Programmer should know about Undefined Behavior

BTW, several industries (including nuclear, aircrafts, and even health devices etc...) have their specifications and regulations regarding safety critical software. For example DO-178C for the commercial aircrafts. In such cases, software costs a lot more (e.g. per line of code) than your usual phone application, and the software development methodology is very different (and much more bureaucratic: you'll document and need to have formally accepted and tested any change, even a single line patch).