Sentence Correction

Unfortunately for the commuters who lost their lives when the bridge collapsed, the engineer was not honest at the preliminary public safety commission hearing, when he was questioned about the structure's weight-bearing abilities.
a)was not honest
b)was not
c)was honest
d)had not been honest
e)had not been being honest

[spoiler]OA is D , but why is A wrong specially when it is mentioned in non-underlined portion "he was questioned" simple past tense[/spoiler]

Points to consider:

What happened first? Did the bridge collapse or was the preliminary public safety commission hearing held first?

ofcourse he wasn't honest first and bridge collapsed later

Unfortunately for the commuters who lost their lives when the bridge collapsed, the engineer had not been honest at the preliminary public safety commission hearing, when he was questioned about the structure's weight-bearing abilities.

but in non-underlined portion (bolded above)its mentioned it "he was questioned".... he was questioned at the same time when he was not honest - so they should be in same tense

I think this is best answer for this question ---

Unfortunately for the commuters who lost their lives when the bridge collapsed, the engineer had not been honest at the preliminary public safety commission hearing, when he had been questioned about the structure's weight-bearing abilities.

What say?