Pilot history...
Have no first hand info (if someone has, please correct), however based on analogies on other East-bloc countries, I assume there was an airforce unit assigned to government flights since many decades. As only 2-3 units of the type were operated as such, and the same type was in use by the national airline, the pilots were often drawn from the best (which in those times = best connected) of the airline, and it was regular practice (at least in Hungary) for them to be rotated into airline operations to keep current, as government flights would not have built up sufficient hours. I assume the pilots of this ill fated flight would have had similar background.
(In H they were not very popular, getting all the perks while not really being accountable. One such crew was involved in the last fatal accident of MA at OTP in '79, ironically flying into trees on a too low approach in fog... Soon after that the unit was disbanded, and govt chartered MA aircraft for official flights)