Indeed ,an impresive plane it was.
Regarding safest airplane build,you should check this site :
http://www.airdisaster.com/statistics/
It is not the years of service that made a plane the safest,is the nr of accidents versus number of flights.
You will see that even it has only 1 accident ,at a number of 0,08 milion flights ,concorde ranks nr 19 (last)
The 737 ,with 47 accidents (till dec 2004) ,ranks nr 5 with 76 million flights.
Another interesting example, the mighty 747 is nr 14 ,with 24 accidents from 14.8 million flights.
The statistics can be quite surprising sometimes.