The flight sim community suffered a terrible blow recently as malicious hackers essentially destroyed a longtime website which catered to aircraft game devotees.

The BBC reports that Avsim, launched in 1996, was devastated when hackers trashed both of its servers. Founder Tom Allensworth said in a statement:

The method of the hack makes recovery difficult, if not impossible. AVSIM is totally offline at this time and we expect to be so for some time to come. We are not able to predict when we will be back online, if we can come back at all.

Derek Davis, editor of PC Pilot magazine, told the BBC:

It looks like 13 years of hard work on Tom's part could have been wiped out. Avsim is an important site, because it services the whole community as a source of community developed terrains, skins, and mods - its contribution has been immeasurable....

Via: Ars Technica