I had to learn Eiffel at college because my prof was its inventor (Disclaimer: I really have a problem with this way of 'teaching'). And as such it was bolted into our brains, that in software engineering, it just so happens that everything that Eiffel 'solves', is precisely what is 'amiss' in other languages. I was mainly pissed that besides Prolog, I had to learn yet another obscure language.

In hindsight, I do think I might have been a bit judgmental back then, Eiffel has some very nice constructs and language limitations that allow you to build safety critical software (as you put it).