It would seem their training was sufficient to complete the hard bit of the sortie ie the SAR training - but they managed to turn a simple transit back to base into an accident.
I am puzzled as to why they didn't have the height hold in - it maybe that the captain just wanted to fly the aircraft without all the automatics but you would expect him to monitor things far more carefully if that were so.
The number of ignored warnings that should have prompted recovery is rather worrying.
Very sad, RIP.