That’s not really a good comparison. The reason C has been so prevalent is because it was used to make Unix, which was distributed widely for decades, and because it was relatively simple to write compilers for it/port it to new platforms. Ada doesn’t exist in the same context; compilers were expensive and not widely distributed, there wasn’t a free, open-source compiler until GNAT in 1995, and Ada was never the default systems language for any widely distributed OS. I mean the circumstances could not be more different.

If C had been designed as a safer language (with even just small improvements that would not have been hard to implement), it would still be widely used and there would be fewer security problems associated with it. It is the Just World Fallacy [0] to assume that the most widespread language became so on its merits and not based on its historical context.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis